Designer Phillippe Starck Says He's Working On 'Revolutionary' Product With Apple

The French designer Phillippe Starck said in a radio interview with France Info that he is working with Apple on a “revolutionary” new product that will be unveiled within the next 8 months. He gave no hint at what the product might be. He said he met regularly with formerApple CEO Steve Jobs before his death last October.

Here’s a translation of his remarks, as published by Le Figaro, via Google Translate, and linked to by Apple Insider:

“French designer Philippe Starck announced today on France Info that it is working with the U.S. Computer group Apple in a project “revolutionary” that would emerge in eight months. “Indeed, there is a big project together which will be out in eight months,” said the designer in the show “Everything and its opposite.”

Invoking the “religious cult of secrecy” of the California firm, he declined further detail, except to talk about a project “quite revolutionary (…) if not very”. Philippe Starck, who has revamped hotels, restaurants, toothbrushes or even the last Parisian Navigo travel card, has revealed that he regularly met in California [with] Steve Jobs, Apple’s legendary founder who died last October.

“For seven years I came to see him once a month in Palo Alto and elsewhere Monday I go there, because even though he is dead, now I will see his wife. We liked to talk all things interesting, “he said. The designer has also announced currently designing a restaurant in the Paris flea market in Saint Ouen (northern suburbs).

Apple Insider says Starck does not appear to have worked with Apple before, although he had designed premium iPhone/iPad speakers and headphones previously for peripherals company Parrot. The site asserts that the comments from Starck “will undoubtedly fuel speculation about a rumored Apple television set that the company is believed to be working on.”