Modeled after Star Wars Stormtroopers, Apple AirPods were
Your Apple AirPods have a darker origin than you might guess.
Jony Ive, the design mastermind behind all of Apple's iconic products since 1997, was inspired by the sleek Stormtrooper uniforms from Star Wars when he created Apple's now ubiquitous gloss-white earbud design (used for both the EarPods and more recent wireless AirPods), according to a breathless profile in the Wall Street Journal.
Ive reportedly told The Force Awakens director JJ Abrams that the rounded, white-shelled armor of the Empire's foot soldiers was the look he had in mind when he designed Apple's earbuds, putting the personification of intergalactic totalitarian rule in all of our pockets.
The Apple design guru also gave the director some design input for one of the new symbols of the to the Star Wars universe: Kylo Ren's controversial hilted lightsaber. Abrams said that Ive told him he “would love to see a lightsaber that is rougher, spitting sparks,” before the 2015 film.
Ive told the New Yorker he wanted to break away from the smoothness of the series' weapons up to that point. "I thought it would be interesting if it were less precise, and just a little bit more spitty.”
This is far from the first time Ive has cited Star Wars as one of his design influences, calling the films "really, really informative to our view of the future," in a 2013 appearance on Charlie Rose.
Brett Williams is a Tech Reporter at Mashable. He writes about tech news, trends and other tangentially related topics with a particular interest in wearables and exercise tech. Prior to Mashable, he wrote for Inked Magazine and Thrillist. Brett's work has also appeared on Fusion and AskMen, to name a few. You can follow Brett on Twitter @bdwilliams910.
