Jony Ive (and Apple lawyers) didn’t like it when this Jony Ive puppet went viral

A silly Jony Ive puppet and soundboard went viral in the last two days, and it didn’t escape the attention of Ive himself, or the Apple legal team.

The soundboard allowed you to hear Ive eloquently spout words like aluminium in his iconic British accent. This apparently upset Ive, which on Friday prompted Apple’s legal team to send a take-down request to the site’s co-creator Amy Hoy.

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It’s surprising to see such a response given how harmless the soundboard seemed to us — even Steve Jobs joked about Ive’s accent. We chatted with Hoy Friday afternoon after the soundboard had been taken down, and it’s pretty clear the joke was meant to be gentle:

“We took it down because it’s not fun any more if it’s upsetting him,” Hoy said. “We like him; that was not our goal.”

Links to the soundboard site now point to a page with the following statement from Hoy and co-conspirator Thomas Fuchs:

This site was meant as good-natured teasing. We are (big) fans of Jony Ive’s work. We have an original iPod on a shelf in the office, so we’re reminded about great design every day. We didn’t intend to be mean or hurt feelings.

Hoy released an essay criticizing Ives’s software design approach, called “‘Flat Design’? Destroying Apple’s Legacy… or Saving It.”