Financial Times:
Jony Ive is leaving Apple after more than two decades in which his iconic designs for the Mac, iPod and iPhone turned one of Silicon Valley’s faded giants into the world’s most valuable company and defined a generation of consumer products.
Sir Jonathan is setting up his own new venture, a creative business called LoveFrom, with Apple as its first client. The transition will begin later this year, with LoveFrom launching fully in 2020.
This is VERY bad news.
I dunno, I kinda got the feeling that because of him, Apple’s design had gotten a little too stale, self indulgent, and many times emphasized form over function. It might be time for some fresh(er) ideas.
If this is indeed VERY bad news, as you say, then Apple is in way bigger trouble than losing their head designer. There is no way that after all these years at Apple that Jony Ive has not built a team that does the bulk of the work and has levels of leadership built in under him. If that isn’t the case then he has failed as a leader and should never have been given Senior VP status.
I do not think that is the case and I am not worried at all about this. They got way more years out of Jony than just about any other company would have. I am confident that Jony has created a design language, a design philosophy, and processes within Apple that will allow his team to thrive and continue for many years.
It sounds like Ive will still be involved with Apple and is still going to have a say in what is to come. I also agree that he probably has a number of people that he’s worked with for years who will be able to transition into an upper management position within the design team structure.
Oh, and there’s this…
Apple survived and has done pretty well it seems after loosing STEVE JOBS!
Hello!!
But some would say that is because Jony Ive filled his role. Without Jony, who is the head tastemaker at Apple now? There is absolutely no way he can perform this role as an outside contractor. You need an Apple employee, who is there every day watching the iteration of product development, to be the head tastemaker. Is that Jeff Williams now? I think Grubers take on this is spot on.
Its been pretty obvious that Jony lost his passion for designing consumer electronics, so while I’m shocked, I’m also not surprised.
Spot on.
You start with the fact that Apple is his first client — he’s not cutting ties with the company.
But moreover, you have to ask yourself: What’s left for Ive to do at Apple? He basically reinvented the way we “compute.” He’s got all the accolades he could ever want. He’s rich enough that he and his family will never have any concerns about money. But he was never going to be CEO. Whoever is in the plans to succeed Cook, Ive was never on the list.
So what’s left for him to do? He’s 52. Maybe he just wants to do exactly what he wants to do, and not have to worry about next quarter’s numbers ever again.
As franksspam points out, if Ive hasn’t built a self-sustaining design/tastemaker team by now, then he never should have made it to C-level at a trillion dollar company.
While I understand your reference, the point is no one could replace Jobs, I don’t care who it is. Frankly, I think it is time for a change and that I have no doubt there are a number of very talented and forward thinking people who have learned their lessons well from Ive.
The strength of Apple, at least for me, is the depth of talent in both management and tech design and build quality. It is ingrained in everything they do and I for one am confident that the company will continue to produce and design products that will have that DNA throughout their future offerings.
Also, let’s be clear here, there are a number of products we haven’t even seen yet that will be coming to market over the next few years that have Ive’s hands all over them and he still I’m sure will be an owner of a hell of lot of Apple stock to keep him interested in seeing the company move forward.
It is a big change, I’m not denying that, I just sense a bit of the old “Apple is doomed I tells ya!” sweats breaking out a bit and it makes me want to say to everyone to take a breath and relax a bit!
I’m sure he has a very competent team of designers, each with their own opinions and tastes, who frequently butt heads and disagree. The problem is that you need that top level, directly responsible individual, who LEADS the entire effort and has final say.
Steve Jobs was that guy. Then Jony. Now….Jeff Williams?
It really depends how much of his team follows him out of Apple, I think.
If his team is now reporting to the COO as Gruber says, it is indeed very bad news.
Looks like two new people are now reporting to the COO. I don’t think that’s a major problem. Likely they’ll pick one as the CDO at some point.
Darn good point.
I agree with both of you that this is the part that’s important. Not that Ive is gone, but how Apple proceeds in his absence.
Maybe Jeff Williams has been a closet design genius all along.
If not, I’m coming around to the view that the current structure is temporary. Decisions need to be made, but not hastily.
There are many who think this is very GOOD news. Ives has meddled in areas where he is, let’s suggest, marginally competent. Notably software usability and structure. Also, while I love many of his designs it seems to me that things like thinness for its own sake, reduction in useful ports on portables, the silly trashcan Mac Pro, etc. are smudges. New blood is good (this coming from a 67 year old geezer).
He lost the laptop keyboard fight.
It’s really not bad news at all, might even end up being good news. He’s made his biggest contribution at Apple already. That contribution is not any particular product either, but rather building a culture that values great product design. That culture is not going to go away because he is no longer there. It might even improve being guided by someone else’s sensibilities.
Also this notion that he will continue to work with Apple via his new company is silly. That is just PR spin in my opinion. He’s leaving the company and that is that.
As usual that Gruber guy has some very worthwhile thoughts on this and his post should be mandatory careful reading for anybody interested.
I particularly agree with both his criticisms of some (I would extend it to many) aspects of Apple’s recent designs and his skepticism of a corporate structure where design is perhaps a less than primary element.
I do think that’s the downside view, however. I suspect and hope that anybody important in Apple is fully aware of the critical importance of product design and that extremely smart, extremely creative people will be given those reins in appropriate measure.
One thing Gruber didn’t specifically mention: I’m not sure Ive being given control over software design was ever a good thing. Every article I’ve read stresses his interest in materials and their properties and capabilities and his innovation in using them. I have never heard anything similar regarding software.
This good news.
Jony has been putting form over function to a fault for years now. The mouse that won’t work when charged, the loss of MagSafe, the ux shitshow that has been iOS since he took charge, the utterly fucked up MacBook keyboards. Dongle hell. And on and on. I don’t know why people blow so much sunshine up this guys rear
Some have already headed out, perhaps to join Jony later this year at his firm?
The old guard is gone. Christopher Stringer and Daniele De Iuliis were from the 1990s era, like Ive, and were thought to be contenders to take over. They’re gone. Three members left in the past six months, perhaps to join Jony at LoveFrom. And remember the core design team at Apple is always thought as very small. And what happened to Richard Howarth, an Ive Lieutenant, who was vice president of industrial design at Apple, poised to take over from Jony? Now Evans Hankey, also has been at Apple for quite long, is in his position. Is Richard Howarth still taking over but they won’t name him yet until Ive is really gone? New and much younger people have been hired in the past years. So this seems to have been a directive from above (Cook) to shake things up at Apple.
Well, not really new blood, as Evans Hankey has been at Apple for a long time too. I wonder what happened to Apple veteran Richard Howarth of the Design Group. He was an Ive Lieutenant and was named Vice President of Industrial Design a few years ago. He was poised to take over the Design Group.
Wow I disagree with everything you said. Maybe you should move to Windows and Chinese hardware. You don’t deserve Apple products.
Oh I see, after looking at your other comments I see you’re a professional Apple hater. Figures.
It’s just time to move on. His design sense influenced many. But, it is a new era that perhaps needs departure from the present design language..
Personally, the laptops reflect some really poor design choices.
Bring back the beige box
Hot take: they’ve been waiting for him to leave, so they can move in their own career trajectory, and exercise some of their own creative muscle. Hotter take: they probably have been for the past few years (new Mac Pro, rumored MBP while he’s been checked out).
From a company as strongly associated with design as Apple, I’d have expected to hear about a chosen successor for Ive along with this news of his departure.
On the contrary, this is very good news. With the exception of the Watch and AirPods (grand slams), Ive has been the burnt out bottleneck throttling design since the trash can. Apple has been on a roll this year with a lot of exciting announcements that indicate a return to form and function. Looking forward to what the extremely talented design, software, and hardware teams develop next.
Apple didn’t have a Chief Design Officer until 2015. The lack of a C-level executive for design isn’t going to be a new thing for them. They have time to figure out who is best able to be the design gatekeeper.
This too shall pass. The HR shuffle (no pun intended) isn’t written in stone, and may even get re-organized again by the time he actually leaves.
Interesting point, and I understand the POV that Wonka needs a monotheistic gatekeeper of design (not unlike Jobs’ role) but I’m curious to see how this shakes out. Cook’s Apple seems to be reshaping into teams of talented people working together to create great products while he gets out of the way (same with Ive’s role now). 2019 is evidence of the success of that model. I would argue this is Apple’s “third act”, and the dark days are over (again). Just don’t lose Federighi!
Although DC77 stated it a bit rudely, I tend to agree with his underlying points. Adherents of the Bauhaus tend to produce designs that are aesthetically pleasing to a certain taste but don’t actually perform their function very well.