Yesterday, Apple announced that Chief Design Officer, Jony Ive will depart the company later this year to open his own independent design practice, which will count Apple among its primary clients.
Ive’s departure will see the long-running Apple designer, responsible for products such as the Apple Watch, iPod, iPhone, iPad and MacBook, hand his responsibilities to design team leaders Evans Hankey, Vice President of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, Vice President of Human Interface Design who will now report to Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Williams.
A report from Bloomberg suggests Jony has gradually been stepping away from his responsibilities at Apple over the past four years, claiming design team meetings were taking place in San Francisco, to reduce Ive’s commute times, and that Ive was only traveling to Apple’s headquarters a few times a week.
Bloomberg goes on to say Apple employees are worried that the re-organisation announced yesterday is another sign of Apple losing its edge when it comes to design.
This has been a long time in the making, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to discuss personnel moves. He’s been at Apple over 25 years, and it’s a really taxing job. It’s been an extremely tense 25 years for him at Apple and there’s a time for everyone to slow down.
Jony has been seen travelling to London, his hometown, more frequently in the last few years, according to the report and despite in 2017 being seen to retake full control of Apple’s design devision after it was announced he would hand more design responsibilities to colleagues in 2015, Bloomberg claims not a lot changed when Ive retook control, and he continued to distance himself from Apple.
Jony Ive | Apple
Ive said within an interview around the time of the launch of the original Apple Watch that he is becoming “deeply, deeply tired.”