At the close of Apple’s iPad product launch on January 27, 2010 Steve Job stood in front his Keynote slide of two street signs, one reading “Liberal Arts,†the other “Technology.†At this juncture, Jobs tells his audience,
“Now the reason that Apple is able to create products like the iPad is because we have always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts. To be able to get the best of both, to make extremely advanced products from a technology point of view, but also have them be intuitive, easy to use, fun to use. So, that they really fit the users. The users don’t have to come to them. They come to the user. And it’s the combination of these two things that I think has let us make the type of creative products like the iPad.â€
While it should be noted that product design at Apple must also make commercial sense, as Job’s later conceded in an interview with Stephen Fry. He stressed that “it’s never the starting point. We start with the product and the user experience.†That is, the vision to always try to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts is a genuine concern for Job’s and his Apple enterprise. This vision, and its execution, is intriguing in it relation to learning and education. How has this sort of design thinking by Apple (and its like-minded contemporaries) influenced the direction and nature of learning?