Philippe Starck, world famous French designer discussed with little detail his new business relationship with Apple. His project is dropping this year he said though. What you think it is? Hit the jump for details on the rumor.
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World famous French designer Philippe Starck claims to be working on a “revolutionary” new product with tech giant Apple set to be unveiled within the next eight months.
Starck made the claims during a radio interview yesterday with France Info, but did not go into much detail about the mystery product.
“Indeed, there is a big project together which will be out in eight months,” Starck said, according to a translation picked up by AppleInsider.
The 63-year-old designer declined to comment further, citing Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple’s “religious cult of secrecy.” He did, however, reveal that the new project is “quite revolutionary.”
During the interview, Starck also said he regularly met with the late Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs before his death last October. Starck had been visiting Jobs once a month for the past seven years, and is still friends with Jobs’s wife.
Starck’s work ranges from interior designs for restaurants and hotels to mass-produced items like toothbrushes, chairs, and alarm clocks. AppleInsider pointed out that Starck has not worked with Apple in the past. He did design iPhone and iPod speakers, which sell for around $1,600, for the company Parrot back in 2008.
Starck’s claims could add fuel to rumors about a forthcoming Apple television set, AppleInsider said. Peter Misek, an equity analyst with Jefferies, was in Asia recently and said he saw “evidence [that] commericial iTV production is starting.” Misek speculated that the Apple TV set would go into production in May or June with 2-5 million devices and officially hit the market during the fourth quarter.
UPDATE: Apple tells All Things D that it is not, in fact, working on a product with Starck, suggesting that the designer might have been referring to a yacht that he and Jobs discussed before the Apple co-founder’s October death.
