Apple's senior vice president of design, Sir Jony Ive, has hit out at the design ethics of rivals, claiming that not enough thought has gone into them and are often shoddily built.

"We're surrounded by anonymous, poorly made objects," he said in a Sunday Times interview.

"It's tempting to think it's because the people who use them don't care - just like the people who make them. But what we've shown is that people do care. It's not just about aesthetics. They care about things that are thoughtfully conceived and well made.

"We make and sell a very, very large number of (hopefully) beautiful, well-made things. Our success is a victory for purity, integrity - for giving a damn."

READ: Where's Jony? Heeere's Jony! (Update: Apple senior VP back after brief absence)

In the interview, Ive also had some choice words for rivals who steal design ideas from Apple. "It's theft," he boldly claimed. "What's copied isn't just a design, it's thousands and thousands of hours of struggle."

However, he wasn't quite so forthcoming about the Apple iWatch and its rumoured existence.

"Obviously I'm not going to talk about it," he said. But laughed at the constant speculation and press coverage the concept gets. "It's like a game of chess, isn't it?" he added.