You might recognize Apple's senior vice president of industrial design Jonathan Ive from such past accomplishments as the masterminding of, well, pretty much single every iDevice, but he's now a knight too. The 44-year-old Steve Jobs protégé -- Jony if you will -- said he was  "both humbled and sincerely grateful" to accept his new title as a Knight Commander of the British Empire on Friday as part of the United Kingdom's annual New Year Honours list. Jobs described Ives as his "spiritual partner," though the BBC reports that "Mr Ive was 'hurt' by Mr Jobs taking credit for innovations that came from the design team." Nevertheless, Ive has also created some of the most iconic designs of our technologically dependent time: the iPad, iPhone, the iPod. (One could also make a point about how Ive borrowed most of his design innovation from Dieter Rams, the German genius behind Braun's iconic 1960s industrial design.) Regardless of what the British say about Ive's feelings about who took credit for what, he gave a very moving speech at Apple's Celebration of Steve in October. Now, he's an official member of the aristocracy. And don't even think about making the obvious iKnight joke. It's been done.

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Adam Clark Estes