Interesting difference in the titles. FastCompany—a media friend of Apple—has gone for the blunt title, while Apple's headline is clearly about maintaining investor confidence. Both are true.
Interesting difference in the titles. FastCompany—a media friend of Apple—has gone for the blunt title, while Apple's headline is clearly about maintaining investor confidence. Both are true.
There's a lot of takes on twitter that people "have seen this coming", which.....sure, maybe? I think the only way you can really evaluate that is if you have any ins at Apple. I've had the...
There's a lot of takes on twitter that people "have seen this coming", which.....sure, maybe? I think the only way you can really evaluate that is if you have any ins at Apple. I've had the privilege of being a guest at Apple Park more than just a few times, and it's plainly obvious how Jony was not checked out over the past few years, but Apple Park has taken him and his team immense amounts of focus. There are so many prime pieces of design to marvel at that haven't really been spoken about publicly: the elevator buttons, the parking signs, the lighting, the signage, and far more. Now that Apple Park is complete, it's probably the right time.
To be honest, my ultimate concern for Apple is the ensuing reorg: Hardware Design and Human Interface are now under the house of Jeff Williams, the COO. I've previously alluded to this here, but I don't think "Ops" should be representative of the company in such a major way. Even though he led the Apple Watch project, Jeff Williams hasn't publicly shown that he's ready to be a "product leader"—I guess now is his chance to prove me (and others) wrong. Do anything to shift my perception of Apple's present stagnation please, Jeff.
Yes, I did really say "the parking signs"—those things drive me insane whenever I got to drive by them. It's hard to explain, but the signs that tell you about available parking are mind blowing. And the traffic lights in Apple Park are modeled after the macOS quit/minimize/maximize buttons.
Gruber's take is quick and, at best, pernicious. Yeah—I don't think this is a typical exit though. The communication will not drop to zero, and he'll still be invited in as a welcomed guest to...
Gruber's take is quick and, at best, pernicious.
This angle that he’s still going to work with Apple as an independent design firm seems like pure spin. You’re either at Apple or you’re not. Ive is out.
Yeah—I don't think this is a typical exit though. The communication will not drop to zero, and he'll still be invited in as a welcomed guest to check in, but yes—he's not going to lead anything. We will not see Designed by Apple and LoveFrom in California and the UK, ever. He'll be in the ID studio some Friday afternoons, sketching on top of another designer's sketchbook, giving some suggestions and glances, at best.
This dropped like a bomb. As far as I can tell no one in the media got a heads up about this news. Ever since Steve Jobs died it’s seemed to me that Ive ran his own media interaction.
It's plainly obvious now that Financial Times has had plenty of time to put together exclusive packages for this. I think Gruber includes things like this as a trick to show he's jumped right to a post reaction—not skimming the field before drawing up his reaction.
Fifth: Fuck this “sir” shit. We don’t have titles in the United States.
I don't like this—this is going to land with a thud in many parts of the world. It doesn't mean that you can just not address him with the title.
Apple’s hardware and industrial design teams work so far out that, even if I’m right and Ive is now effectively out of Apple, we’ll still be seeing Ive-designed hardware 5 years from now. It is going to take a long time to evaluate his absence.
I largely agree with this—everyone will forget in a year or so, but this is absolutely the case.
It makes me queasy to see that Apple’s chief designers are now reporting to operations. [...] Not just for Apple, but especially at Apple, it should be a permanent C-level title. I don’t think Ive ever should have been put in control of software design, but at least he is a designer. I don’t worry that Apple is in trouble because Jony Ive is leaving; I worry that Apple is in trouble because he’s not being replaced.
This is spot on. I'm not satisfied with the Jeff Williams answer.
Here's the official Apple announcement: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/jony-ive-to-form-independent-design-company-with-apple-as-client/
Interesting difference in the titles. FastCompany—a media friend of Apple—has gone for the blunt title, while Apple's headline is clearly about maintaining investor confidence. Both are true.
There's a lot of takes on twitter that people "have seen this coming", which.....sure, maybe? I think the only way you can really evaluate that is if you have any ins at Apple. I've had the privilege of being a guest at Apple Park more than just a few times, and it's plainly obvious how Jony was not checked out over the past few years, but Apple Park has taken him and his team immense amounts of focus. There are so many prime pieces of design to marvel at that haven't really been spoken about publicly: the elevator buttons, the parking signs, the lighting, the signage, and far more. Now that Apple Park is complete, it's probably the right time.
To be honest, my ultimate concern for Apple is the ensuing reorg: Hardware Design and Human Interface are now under the house of Jeff Williams, the COO. I've previously alluded to this here, but I don't think "Ops" should be representative of the company in such a major way. Even though he led the Apple Watch project, Jeff Williams hasn't publicly shown that he's ready to be a "product leader"—I guess now is his chance to prove me (and others) wrong. Do anything to shift my perception of Apple's present stagnation please, Jeff.
Yes, I did really say "the parking signs"—those things drive me insane whenever I got to drive by them. It's hard to explain, but the signs that tell you about available parking are mind blowing. And the traffic lights in Apple Park are modeled after the macOS quit/minimize/maximize buttons.
Gruber's take: https://daringfireball.net/2019/06/jony_ive_leaves_apple
Gruber's take is quick and, at best, pernicious.
Yeah—I don't think this is a typical exit though. The communication will not drop to zero, and he'll still be invited in as a welcomed guest to check in, but yes—he's not going to lead anything. We will not see
Designed by Apple and LoveFrom in California and the UK, ever. He'll be in the ID studio some Friday afternoons, sketching on top of another designer's sketchbook, giving some suggestions and glances, at best.It's plainly obvious now that Financial Times has had plenty of time to put together exclusive packages for this. I think Gruber includes things like this as a trick to show he's jumped right to a post reaction—not skimming the field before drawing up his reaction.
I don't like this—this is going to land with a thud in many parts of the world. It doesn't mean that you can just not address him with the title.
I largely agree with this—everyone will forget in a year or so, but this is absolutely the case.
This is spot on. I'm not satisfied with the Jeff Williams answer.