Apple’s Ive commissioned to design limited-edition Leica M camera?

A new report asserts that Apple’s SVP of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive will help design a one-of-a-kind Leica M camera for charity. The new Leicas were announced at the Photokina event in Germany yesterday. the Leica M model features a 24-megapixel CMOS sensor, Live View and 1080p HD video recording, a Gorilla Glass three-inch LCD screen with 920K pixels and more.

It will set you back a cool $6,950, or $5,450 if you go for the more affordable Leica E model. Ive, who won numerous industry awards for his work at Apple, will reportedly design a limited-edition Leica M camera which will be auctioned off for charity. Only one unit of the camera will be produced…

Michael Zhang, reporting for PetaPixel:

At Leica’s special event last night, after the new Leica M was announced, company owner Dr. Andreas Kaufmann revealed that they’ve got a very special limited edition version of the camera planned — one that’s designed by legendary Apple designer Sir Jonathan Ive.

This camera will be the mother of all limited editions based on one simple fact: only a single unit of the camera will ever be produced.

No auction date, terms or additional information was available at press time.

Ive recently bought a $17 million house on Francisco’s Gold Coast, one of the city’s most exclusive blocks.

Hailed as one of the leading industrial designers of all time, Ive was recently knighted and has also been named Royal Designer for Industry by The Royal Society of Arts, Designer of the Year by the Design Museum London and smartest designer in technology by Forbes.

Here we see him explain an assembly line Apple developed to be able to build the Rolex of smartphones.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Ive will be designing the entire camera body from scratch or perhaps just tweak the existing design to add some Apple-like polish to it.

During the Apple v. Samsung trial last month, court documents revealed that Apple following the iPhone’s debut was seriously contemplating building a digital camera of its own.

Apple is also bidding for Kodak patents, has made notable advances with phone cameras in general and is looking to continue perfecting the iSight-branded iPhone camera by researching new technologies, including 3D imaging and facial gestures recognition.

To those hoping to bid: I hope you have deep pockets.