Apple’s former chief designer Sir Jony Ive has revealed the strange diet of the tech giant’s late founder Steve Jobs

The creator of the Apple Watch, who worked alongside Steve Jobs for 15 years and ate lunch with him every day, has revealed the tech giant’s strange eating habits.

Sir Jony Ive, 58, was the chief design officer at Apple until 2019 and a close friend of Jobs until his death in 2011 from Pancreatic cancer.

Speaking to the Ruthie’s Table 4 podcast, Sir Jony admitted that Jobs, who was worth £649million, ‘could not be happier’ than when he was eating a tomato.

The British-American designer said: ‘We had lunch together nearly every day, so Monday to Friday we would have lunch in the canteen at Apple or we would go out together.

‘He was a vegetarian, maybe pescatarian, he loved sashimi and he had an extraordinary pallet and we would love going for sashimi together.

‘But we could both eat a tomato with great olive oil and just admire and he could never be happier than that.’

The north London-born designer said he ‘grew up’ in Silicon Valley when he moved there in 1992 and started working alongside Jobs.

He marvelled at Jobs’s knowledge of the area, the tech giant having grown up there as a child, and said the Apple founder had a ‘beautiful’ appreciation for the place.

Steve Jobs died in 2011 from Pancreatic cancer and was a close friend of Sir Jony Ive

Naomi Campbell (L) and Jony Ive attend the Chancellor’s Circle Reception and Dinner at Royal College of Art on June 28, 2018

Sir Jony has since moved back to the UK with his wife Heather, who he met at Newcastle University, and the pair live in £17million Cotswald mansion

Sir Jony said: ‘I got to grow up in Silicon Valley and benefit from seeing the valley in Steve Jobs’ eyes. 

‘He grew up in Silicon Valley and he remembered it and would say, “Jony that used to be an orchard of apricot trees”. 

‘The way he understood the valley in relation to San Francisco, so his sense of the importance of San Francisco was quite beautiful.’

Sir Jony has since moved back to the UK with his wife Heather, who he met at Newcastle University, and the pair live in £17million Cotswald mansion.

It was announced in 2019 that Sir Jony would leave Apple and start an independent firm named LoveFrom, along with fellow designer Marc Newson.

The Australian industrial designer revealed to the River Cafe’s owner, Ruth Rodgers, on her podcast that Ive had come up with the idea for the Apple Watch a decade before it came to fruition.

Sir Jony Ive, 58, was the chief design officer at Apple until 2019 and a close friend of Jobs until his death in 2011 from Pancreatic cancer .

Apple CEO Tim Cook (R) and Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive

Jony Ive attends the Royal College Of Art convocation ceremony at the RCA and Albert Hall

Newson said: ‘Jony always loved watches and he always said he wanted to do a watch at Apple but we are talking more than a decade before it was mooted as a possibility.

‘No one could quite get their heads around what it was he was thinking. How in the context of Apple would you create a watch?

‘Did the world need a watch? This wasn’t long after the iPhone and the iPad had been invented.

‘But he had this vision to create a watch and clearly, he managed to convince the powers that be at Apple to proceed with the project.’

The Apple Watch was released in 2015 and has generated the company £15billion in revenue.

Newson continued: ‘It was clear the Apple Watch was going to be a success at first.

‘The idea of bringing back a product that your grandparents would have been very comfortable with but children of that generation simply didn’t know or own was stunning.

Jony Ive and supermodel Karlie Kloss

Sir Jony spoke to the Ruthie’s Table 4 podcast, hosted by the River Cafe owner

‘And then all of a sudden people were wearing watches again. It reintroduced this whole thing that you wear on your wrist.

‘But now, I’m amazed, you see them on people on television and all around the world.

‘Safe to say it’s the most produced watch in the history of watches.

That was born out of a desire that Jony had that no one else could identify, he’s cut from a different cloth.’

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