He brought Apple’s hardware design to new heights — could Jony Ive do the same for the burgeoning market for AI-focussed hardware?

That’s the hope for Ive’s next project, which will see the veteran designer team up with ChatGPT developer OpenAI for a new hardware device leveraging the company’s fast-growing artificial intelligence products.

The partnership — rumored earlier this year — has now been confirmed in a New York Times profile which explores Ive’s post-Apple independence, including discussions with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. 

The pair have agreed to partner on a new “artificial intelligence device company” for a product “that uses AI to create a computing experience that is less socially disruptive than the iPhone,” according to the article. Not that Apple itself is averse to AI integrations — the latest iOS 18 release is set to get an update that will include baked-in access to ChatGPT and OpenAI tech. 

But iPhones, including the brand new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, still make use of AI as a feature rather than a product unto itself, and that will be the differentiating factor for this new device. OpenAI will be at the core. What industrial design form that will take is “still being determined”, but Ive’s team has exemplary pedigree — some of his new crew worked alongside him on iPhone designs over the years.

A device revolution to come?

Ive’s project won’t be the first to try to make a bespoke, built-for-purpose AI hardware design. But early forays into the market have been mixed at best.

The Rabbit R1 released earlier this year, and charmed with its cutesy phone-like design. But its actual usefulness, swapping out traditional apps for generative AI responses, proved clunky. Likewise, the Humane AI pin launched to great hype, but soon fell flat of the limitations its wearable form factor presented.

But if anyone can create an AI device form factor that actually works, it’s Ive. His meticulous attention to detail has been hugely influential in the world of tech, revolutionizing computing device design. If his focus was ever in question, take this secondary snippet from the article: he’s just spent five years working on a book about the history of buttons.

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• Jony Ive leaving Apple, starting LoveFrom, working... for Apple

The days of Jony Ive roaming the halls of Apple Park are long gone, but so is much of the design team that worked under him a swell. Now, another senior member of Apple's industrial design team has moved on to pastures new. Peter Russell-Clarke spent almost 20 years with Apple but reportedly left the company back in October shortly after the unveiling of the revamped iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro handsets.

Ive of course left Apple back in 2019 but there has been a steady loss of design know-how ever since, with multiple long-term Apple employees choosing to take the opportunity to find a home elsewhere. Evans Hankey, Apple's replacement for Ive, left in 2023 with no replacement found — instead, Apple's industrial designers now report to Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams.

As for Russell-Clarke, he's moved on to a new role at a startup called Vast, helping the company build out its own design team.

'Renowned Apple Industrial Designer Peter Russell-Clarke'

In a press release Vast was quick to make sure that everyone knew just what Russell-Clarke had been up to during his time at Apple. "Mr. Russell-Clarke is an industrial designer and educator, renowned for his design work at Apple," it explains. "Over his nearly 20 year tenure at Apple, Russell-Clarke was instrumental in the design of iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple Watches, as well as the Apple Park headquarters and consumer stores."

Vast also knows that it has someone who knows his way around a patent, with his name sitting on "well over 1,000 Apple patents including the iMac, iPod Nano, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air."

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman notes that almost all of the roughly two dozen designers who worked for Ive have now left the company, a team that was famous for the products that saw Apple become the juggernaut that it is today. Ive himself now works for his own design firm, LoveFrom, a company that has some high-profile names on its books. Those names include Ferrari and Airbnb, although it isn't clear how much time Ive spends working on any of those contracts.

As for Russell-Clarke, there don't appear to be any doubts about his move. “I am excited to be involved with Vast on their incredibly ambitious endeavor,” he said via Vast's press release. “It’s a huge task, but from what I’ve seen, the experience, enthusiasm, and dedication of the Vast team will no doubt lead to incredible things.”

Vast itself says that it s working on artificial gravity space stations, something that Russell-Clarke was unlikely to get to try his hand at while working at Apple — no matter how much Apple Park might look like a UFO.

A return to form

Despite Ive's leaving and the ongoing brain drain that it kicked off, Apple's recent products have signaled a return to form for its design team. It's currently producing some of its best iPhones, while the most modern iPads and MacBooks look great and even brought back some of the features and ports that Ive stripped away.

Given how far in advance Apple designs its products it could be some time before the impact of Russell-Clarke's leaving is felt. Vast says that its new designer left Apple earlier this year "to pursue passion projects, including products and environments to improve the health of people and the planet." Those are things that Apple itself has been trying to do for years, of course. Russell-Clarke will no doubt hope to continue those efforts at his new company.

More from iMore

• All the Jony Ive Drama: Explained
• Ex-Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive working on 'new hardware for the age of AI
• Jony Ive returns to tech design with $60,000 record player

Jony Ive helped create some of Apple’s most iconic devices, like the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and even the oft-forgotten Apple Newton message pad.  

Now, a recent report suggests that his latest venture is an OpenAI-backed piece of hardware. With over $11 billion dollars behind OpenAI, they certainly have the funds and vision to rock the hardware space. 

As originally reported by The Information, citing two people familiar with the situation, Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO has been in talks with Jony Ive but an official confirmation has not been made. 

OpenAI, known for creating the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT,  has already exceeded $1 billion in annual revenue due to subscription services baked into its AI suite. It is currently unclear what this hardware device could be but it is likely to take advantage of OpenAI’s own chatbot. Jony Ive has worked on a whole host of hardware projects for Apple so there isn’t an obvious hardware choice for his expertise. 

A competitive market

Though OpenAI is the market leader in regards to chatbots, they aren’t the only one heavily investing in the space. Microsoft and Google are both working on chatbots to integrate into their respective web browsers, while NetEase is working on a video game with chatbot-like functions for its NPCs. 

All these major companies trying to get to the market have seemingly had an effect on Apple as even Cupertino is putting resources into AI development. Apple is currently planning for the use of its own ‘Apple GPT’ in 2024, complete with search functions and Siri upgrades. 

Though it is very early on, a collaboration between Jony Ive and Open AI could potentially be huge, down to initial funding, the creativity of Ive, and the brand recognition of ChatGPT. Though you can use ChatGPT on all major mobile phones, laptops, and PCs, a device with baked-in ChatGPT 4 support could beat out the rather pitiful Siri or Bixby. Siri is currently one of the worst parts of getting a new iPhone

Jony Ive is Apple's most famous product designer and since leaving the company in 2019 has focused on his independent design firm, LoveFrom, and projects like a Red Nose Day clown nose. But he's now back designing tech products, starting with a $60,000 record player.

The Sondeck LP12-50 designed by LoveFrom is a 50th-anniversary edition of audio brand Linn's iconic record player and it looks exactly like you'd expect an Ive-designed record player would.

Ive describes the LP12-50 as "a very gentle and modest project for us that was really motivated by our love and respect for Linn," and you can see the Apple influence straight away.

Ive told Fast Company, “I’ve owned multiple Linn products over the years, and music has always been profoundly important to me,”

"I think the first consequential music player that I designed was the first iPod, and that began a journey of multiple generations of iPod, and multiple Airpods and music accessories. I feel really fortunate to have gone the full circle . . . so many years on from my first visit to the factory."

Jony Ive's $60,000 record player

Linn Ceo Gilad Tiefenbrun received an email from Ive's assistant on LinkedIn asking to talk that he initially thought was spam. Luckily Tiefenbrun changed his mind and replied back, which led to a phone call with Ive, who was looking for a new Linn turntable.

In that call, Tiefenbrun mentioned the upcoming Linn anniversary. "By the next morning, I had an email from him saying, ‘I’d love to work with you on a special edition.’”

While very few of us will ever be in the market for a $60,000 record player it's a beautiful piece of equipment that resonates with every Apple fan out there thanks to its simple yet elegant design. The project between Linn and LoveFrom took a year of development and now we get to see the fruits of that labor, stunning.

Today marks four years since it was announced that Jony Ive was leaving Apple, a revelation that sent shockwaves through the tech world. Just like that, the man who was synonymous with Apple’s product philosophy was gone – and everyone was asking what would come next.

Since then, it’s been common for people to assume that Apple has changed in seismic ways, namely that it has extracted its head from its proverbial design backside, stopped making foolish decisions brought on by an obsession with minimalism, and started listening to its customers. It’s a simple narrative, but a pretty seductive one at that.

And in many ways, it rings true. Apple definitely seems to be making moves that would be hard to imagine under Ive’s tenure. Gone are the indulgent launch videos explaining the aluminum smelting process in excruciating detail, replaced by an apparent willingness to make devices just a little chunkier if it results in a more useful, sensible design.

Two years after Ive left Apple, for example, the MacBook Pro in 2021 launched with an HDMI slot and an SD card reader. Before then, the only ports you’d find on Apple’s laptops (besides the headphone jack) were configured as USB-C.

Apple insisted that these ports’ speed and flexibility meant they were all you needed; users with plentiful peripherals protested, but Apple stayed the course, ushering in a dongle nightmare that persisted for years. But with Ive gone, Apple added back the ports that people wanted. It’s hard to imagine Ive hadn’t previously vetoed that move in favor of his preferred variety of simplicity and minimalism; with him out of the frame, port variety could return.

The pendulum swings back

To be sure, I’m not arguing that Apple exclusively ignored its customers under Ive. The company frequently listened to its users’ needs during the decades that Ive worked at Apple – just look at the modular Mac Pro from 2019, which Ive had a major role in developing. Apple saw that its trashcan Mac Pro wasn’t what its users wanted, heeded their feedback, and built a machine that strayed away from Apple’s abstract dream in favor of practicality.

Yet since Ive departed, the pendulum has swung away from the influential design team and towards Apple’s engineers and customers. Design is still vitally important, but it doesn’t feel like the be-all and end-all it once was.

Things have changed, then, but many things remain the same. Even without Ive, the company still pays a huge amount of attention to detail – just look at the Vision Pro headset and the clever little touches Apple included, from the Digital Crown used to switch modes to the way onscreen keyboard buttons light up when you hover your finger over them.

That kind of thinking was always evident at Apple (even before Ive joined) and is part of its DNA. Design is still incredibly important, even if it doesn’t override engineering concerns in quite the same way.

For sure, Jony Ive helped develop Apple into a design powerhouse, lending his touch and guidance to many of its most successful products. But he did so not as a solo maverick, but by building an incredible design team and instilling his beliefs into it. He may be gone, but his design philosophy lives on in the team he left behind.

A lasting influence

You can see this in recent products like the Apple Watch Ultra, a device that embodies the famous Steve Jobs adage that “design is how it works.” Underlying its brilliance is an insistence on real functionality. Apple built products like this while Ive was at Apple – just look at the original iPhone – and continues to do so today.

The creation process of many of Apple’s recent products would have begun long before Ive set sail for new shores, or while Apple was a client of his LoveFrom design firm – the Vision Pro and 24-inch iMac being notable examples. But it’s clear that Apple still knows how to craft classic designs, even without Ive micromanaging day-to-day operations.

And that’s why alleged claims that Apple is radically different now that he’s gone don’t entirely add up. Ive’s influence will likely linger on for years to come, and while some things have certainly changed, much more remains familiar to Apple fans and observers the world over.

This, really, is a good thing, since it shows that Apple still knows how to design great products without Jony Ive looming ominously overhead. His influence has been undeniable, and Apple would be in a very different place without his help. But the past four years have not marked an enormous shift away from his way of thinking at Apple. While some things are notably different, the design powerhouse he helped create remains surprisingly unchanged.

While you may be looking forward to Apple's rumored VR headset in the coming months or an Apple Watch Series 9 as we approach the fall, the company's ex-head designer Sir Jony Ive has been busy designing something... a little different: a red nose toy, for a very good cause.

For those unaware, Red Nose Day by Comic Relief is an event held in the UK since 1988 that aims to help those in poverty worldwide. The charity was created by Richard Curtis, the writer responsible for films and TV shows such as Notting Hill and Love Actually, alongside Lenny Henry, an actor, and comedian well-known in the UK, who you may recognise for his recent appearance in Amazon's Lord of the Rings TV show.

While it was held and televised every two years until 2022, the fundraiser is now a yearly event. It takes over the programming on the UK BBC One channel, where funny sketches and money-raising challenges from celebrities and others are broadcast until the late hours of the evening.

Every year, there is also a new red nose that you can buy and wear to show your support for the charity and the day itself. For 2023, Sir Jony Ive was asked to create a new red nose, and we decided to do an unboxing and hands-on impression of it. Or maybe that should be nose-on?

Where has Ive been since leaving Apple?

In charge of creating the look of the first iMac in 1998, the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and many other Apple products during his tenure, Sir Jony Ive was Steve Jobs' right-hand man.

Whether through a perfected hardware design or the experience of unboxing Apple products, you always knew it was an Ive and Jobs project. Together, they created much of what makes Apple Apple today, forming much of the foundation for products that are on shelves right now.

With Job’s untimely death in 2011, Ive had to take more responsibility at the company. That meant he had more say in the software side of things, eventually resulting in the flat design of iOS 7 in 2013. Ive left in 2019 to start his own company, called LoveFrom, a consulting design firm that helped Apple with certain products, including the M1 iMac and its incredibly thin design (although the partnership came to an end in 2022).

The new red nose is an example of Ive's efforts at LoveFrom, allowing him to create and design products that he wouldn't have been able to do if he was still at Apple full-time.

Wearable of the year?

Available for $2.99 / £2.50, all of the Red Nose's proceeds go directly to the charity. It arrives in a crescent-shaped box, and all you need to do is pull the small tag off to the side to get at it.

Once pulled all the way around, the case pops open like a book, and the folded nose suddenly appears in its honeycomb-paper mold. There's a nice feeling of satisfaction as you grab the flat crescent and fold it around to make it into a fully-formed sphere, ready for your best clown impression.

You almost don't want to press on the nose too hard to avoid damaging the honeycomb pattern, but you may have to once it's on your nose, and you need to adjust the fit.

As soon as you're wearing it, though, it's comfortable and even has that 'new car smell' we're all familiar with. It reminded me of the same exciting new product smell wafting from my nose when I unboxed my old iPod Video from 2005, even.

Wearing it around the house, my dog Jolly thought it was something for him to catch at first, but he soon got used to my new look. I'm going to make it a staple of iMore team video chats going forward.

Overall, the design certainly has that Jony Ive look and feel that we all have become accustomed to ever since the first bondi-blue iMac arrived back in 1998.

This is definitely something you don't need to wait on for a second generation — it's got great build quality, is made from over 95% of plant-based materials, and all the features you were hoping for are here. Not to mention you'll be doing your small part for a very worthy cause, just by wearing it. It just works!

Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s most famous Chief Design Officer, created the official logo for King Charles III’s coronation on May 6, 2023.

The crest, showcasing a floral design, which is said to represent “the optimism of Spring” will feature in street parties, social media, and souvenirs throughout the event. 

Speaking about the design, Ive said, “It is such an honor to be able to contribute to this remarkable national occasion, and our team is so very proud of this work. The design was inspired by King Charles’ love of the planet, nature, and his deep concern for the natural world.

“The emblem speaks to the happy optimism of spring and celebrates the beginning of this new Carolean era for the United Kingdom. The gentle modesty of these natural forms combine to define an emblem that acknowledges both the joyful and profound importance of this occasion.”

An Apple without Ive

Ive left his position at Apple in June 2019 to start his independent design firm, LoveFrom. The designer, notable for his works on the iconic original iPhone continued to work with the Tech company as a consultant until parting ways in July 2022. 

Since leaving Apple, Ive has not only been working on designs fit for the king. He has also turned his design skills towards British icons like Comic Relief’s Red Nose, a children’s charity that releases a red clown nose every year to raise funds for children living in poverty. 

Last week, Apple confirmed that it is not planning to replace its outgoing VP of industrial design, Evans Hankey, when she leaves later this year. With the departure of Hankey, who succeeded Ive in 2019, Apple has now reportedly decided to go a different route with product design. 

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company has decided to have its group of about 20 industrial designers report to Apple's chief operating officer, Jeff Williams instead. 

This spells a massive shift for Apple’s design ethos moving even further towards Tim Cook’s vision of a structurally sound business focussed on revenue rather than ground-breaking design. 

Apple is reportedly struggling to find a suitable replacement for the outgoing Evans Hankey, the company's current head of product design. The issue is said to be compounded by a lack of succession planning during Hankey's relatively short time in the role.

Hankey took over from Jony Ive when he left in 2019 and it's likely Apple didn't expect to need to find a replacement so soon. But three years later the company is left with no obvious successor and potentially looking outside the company as a result.

Succession is more than a TV show

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that not only was Hankey not in the role long enough for a succession plan to be put in place, but she also wasn't there long enough to stamp any clear identity onto Apple's designs. It's thought that even the recent iPhone 14 industrial design was laid out years in advance, potentially still with Ive's fingerprints on.

The report says that while Apple would normally look to promote one of its experienced designers, that isn't a clear-cut option today. The company has lost a number of key designers since Ive left the company, some to go and work at his own design shop, LoveFrom. Others have gone on to work at other tech companies or found their own, Bloomberg says.

The upshot is a company that has recruited new blood, but it's too soon for those people to be considered for such a crucial role. Designing Apple's next generation of iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches, and more is a big job and one that is crucial to the company's success.

Bloomberg notes that one potential replacement for Hankey, Richard Howarth, may not actually want the job. He briefly served as head of industrial design between 2015 and 2017 but was ill-suited at the time and some within Apple reportedly doubt whether he would want to take another stab at the top job.

With no clear replacement for Hankey inside Apple, Bloomberg suggests the company could look to Microsoft, Google, and others for an answer citing their respective design improvements in recent years as a sign that Apple isn't the only company capable of making good-looking hardware.

However, Apple is known to have found it difficult to bring outsiders into its leadership team, with one person telling Bloomberg that the replacement "would need to be someone internal."

If that's the case, Apple's best iPhone designer is already working at Apple Park. The company just needs to figure out who it is, and soon.

Apple is on the hunt for a new head of hardware design just three years after appointing its last one.

Evans Hankey, who replaced Jony Ive as the person in charge of Apple's hardware design team, is reportedly on the way out of the role. Hankey had been at Apple for a number of years before taking the top job following Ive's long-awaited departure.

All change

Hankey's leaving Apple was announced within Apple earlier this week, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. She'll hang around for another six months while Apple works out who will take over, with none having been named so far. It's likely Apple will have at least one name in mind already as part of a succession plan — although it isn't clear who that might be.

“Apple’s design team brings together expert creatives from around the world and across many disciplines to imagine products that are undeniably Apple,” a spokesman said in a statement to Bloomberg. “The senior design team has strong leaders with decades of experience. Evans plans to stay on as we work through the transition, and we’d like to thank her for her leadership and contributions.”

Hankey's taking over from Ive coincided with a return to form for Apple's design team. Following years of questionable decisions that led to devices that looked great but suffered from serious design flaws — the MacBook Pro's butterfly keyboard being a prime example — Hankey ushered in a change of tact. Since then we've seen brand new laptops that not only replaced the problematic keyboard but added ports, too.

The lack of ports had long been a bone of contention for Apple's laptop users, with the company instead pointing them toward a sea of dongles in an attempt to turn USB-C and Thunderbolt ports into anything but.

Apple has produced some of its best hardware designs under Hankey's leadership, with the best MacBook to date being the 2021 16-inch MacBook Pro.

As for Alan Dye, the other person promoted following the departure of Ive, he's still around. Apple says that he's going nowhere and remains in charge of design for software and user interfaces. Whether he could take over both roles remains to be seen.

All eyes will now be on Apple to see who picks up the mantle from Evans Hankey. And whether we will see a change in design approach once they do.

What you need to know

• Jony Ive's LoveFrom design firm is no longer working with Apple.
• The two companies have not signed a new contract after the previous one expired.
• Ive is thought to have worked with Apple on a new mixed reality headset.

Jony Ive is officially out of Apple, three years after he left the first time according to a new report. Ive previously left Apple to start his own firm in 2019, but was signed on as a consultant immediately.

Ive founded LoveFrom and then signed a $100 million contracting deal with Apple. That deal appears to have been for three years, with The New York Times now reporting that the contract has come to an end and that the pair have decided to go their separate ways.

The reasons for that haven't been made public, but it doesn't take too much guesswork to figure out. Part of the deal meant that Ive wasn't allowed to work for Apple's competitors, it seems, something that greatly limited the scope of projects that LoveFrom could get involved with.

But it wasn't just Ive that wanted out. The report notes that some Apple execs had questioned the amount of money being paid to Ive, especially following a period that saw multiple designers leave the company to take new roles at LoveFrom. The lack of a contract renewal also means that Ive no longer needs Apple to give him the OK to hire Apple people, too.

With Ive reportedly having already worked on the upcoming Apple mixed reality headset it isn't clear what other products he had a hand in. Since his leaving Apple, the company is thought to have undone many of his design decisions including adding ports back to Macs that he removed them from. Other changes include making devices thicker and heavier to allow for the addition of features — something Ive was reportedly against.

Some of those improvements can be seen in Apple's various MacBook lines and you can grab a MacBook Prime Day deal right now. But be quick, the clock's ticking!

What you need to know

• Jony Ive recently guest-edited at the Financial Times.
• The designer shared some of his favorite tools and design processes.
• He also reflected on the Apple Watch project.

Jony Ive, the former head of design at Apple, recently reflected on his time working on the Apple Watch.

The designer recently guest-edited at the Financial Times and also sat down with his LoveForm partner Marc Newson. Ive specifically discussed his obsession with silver and how Newson helped him finish the Apple Watch.

Apple is known for commonly making silver an available color for most of its devices and it appears that Ive may have had something to do with that. In one guest article called "The Magic of Silver," Ive reflected on the material, calling it "pure and noble."

The designer also sat down with his LoveFrom partner Marc Newson for an extensive conversation about the way they each work together and some of the projects they have worked on over the years. During that conversation, Ive reflected on his time spent designing the Apple Watch, calling it "a joyful and effective collaboration at a particularly difficult time."

Ive went on to admit that he struggled with the final design of the watch and that he reached out to Newson for help. With the two on the project, they were able to land on the design that we know and love today. Ive said that he always strives to land on a design "where there doesn't really appear to be a rational alternative."

You can check out all of Ive's guest edits on the Financial Times website.

What you need to know

• Former Apple design chief Jony Ive will be speaking at a virtual WIRED event next week.
• The virtual RE:WIRED event will take place Tuesday, November 9 at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

Former Apple design chief Jony Ive will speak at a WIRED event next week with Vogue's editor-in-chief Anna Wintour handling the questions. The virtual RE:WIRED event will see Ive speak with Wintour on Tuesday, November 9 at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

Anyone looking to get in on the event can register for free right now.

Ive left Apple in 2019, although many insiders said that he had checked out long before then. He now runs Love From, a design firm he co-founded with fellow designer Marc Newson. Ive was involved with Apple for many years of course, although not all of his design philosophies are well thought of. His determination to make things thin and light often went against what people actually needed from a device, causing friction between Apple and its users. The iPhone 13 getting thicker compared to iPhone 12 is one example of something many find difficult to imagine happening under Ive's watch — despite the battery and photography benefits it affords — the iPhone 13 Pro Max is the best iPhone ever in terms of battery life.

First spotted by 9to5Mac, the event will also include appearances from CISA director Jen Easterly, actor John Cho, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel, and more.

What you need to know

• Exor, Ferrari, and LoveFrom have announced a new creative partnership.
• Jony Ive co-founded LoveFrom when he left Apple in 2019.
• The new deal is reported as a "long term, multi-year" one.

Former Apple design chief Jony Ive will be working with Ferrari after the Italian carmaker, its parent company, and Ive's LoveFrom announced a new "creative partnership."

Announced via press release, the deal will be a "long term, multi-year collaboration with Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson," Ferarri says.

As for what Ive and the team will work on, it isn't really clear. This is what the press release has to say — there's every chance you'll know less after reading it than you did before.

LoveFrom was founded by Ive and Marc Newsom when the former left Apple in 2019 and despite claims at the time, it doesn't appear Ive and Apple have worked together since. As you'd expect, Ive and Newsom say they're "fans and admirers" of John Elkann, Chairman and Chief Executive of Exor and Chairman of Ferrari.

Who's looking forward to some funky new Ferrari iPhone 13 cases? You can bet your bottom Great British Pound — or Euro — that they'd be the best iPhone 13 cases ever made! And costly, I'd imagine.

What you need to know

• Jony Ive filmed a commencement address for the California College of the Arts.
• The address was virtual due to distancing rules.

Former head of design at Apple, Jony Ive, might not be running things at Apple Park anymore but he's still a big deal in the world of art and design. So it's no surprise that he was asked to handle the commencement address for the California College of the Arts with the whole thing done remotely due to local restrictions.

As reported bu SHOWstudio, Ive was addressing the graduating class of 2021 at California College of the Arts during a 15-minute speech that's now available to watch online.

Ive was responsible for some of the best – and worse – designs to come out of Apple and is undoubtedly one of his generation's shining lights. Those graduating will hope that they can be the same to their generation and who knows, maybe they'll end up working at Apple one day as well.

What you need to know

• A Leica camera prototype, designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson, is going up for auction.
• The auction will take place in June and could see almost $300,000 change hands.

A prototype Leica camera, designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson, will go up for auction in June later this year. The camera is described as being in B+ condition but is still expected to bring in as much as $300,000 according to auctioneer Leitz Photographica Auction.

The auction, which was first spotted by The Verge, has a starting price of €100.000 which is around $118,000. However, it is expected to sell for considerably more than that.

The camera itself isn't actually mentioned as working – that's probably something you should check before getting your bid in.

The story goes that this was a prototype of the Leica M for (RED) which was a special camera created so it could be sold for charity. This prototype does look similar to the final product, although someone decided to ditch the almost mirror finish in favor of something a little less likely to capture fingerprints.

From the auctioneer:

Jony Ive left Apple last year and is now working on his own firm alongside Newson. It isn't clear how much of an input Ive had in the iPhone 12 design. The same goes for the latest round of some of the best Macs Apple has ever made.

What you need to know

• Airbnb has hired Jony Ive in a creative consultant role.
• The former Chief Design Officer at Apple will assist with the company's design and marketing.
• Ive joins Hiroki Asai, another former Apple executive who worked on the iPhone.

Airbnb has announced a special collaboration with former Apple exec Jony Ive. In a release Wednesday the companies CEO Brian Chesky stated:

As Reported by The Information, Chesky has confirmed that the company's current Chief Design Officer, Alex Schleifer, would be moving to a part-time role. According to Chesky, bringing Ive on board is part of a "multi-year relationship to design the next generation of Airbnb products and services."

According to the report, Ive's role could afford him major influence over its website, app, and marketing.

Ive will be joining Hiroki Asai, another former Apple executive who is now serving as the company's global head of marketing.

Asai, like Ive, had also worked together at Apple on the launch of the iPhone.

What you need to know

• Jony Ive's profile is no longer on Apple's leadership page.
• It was announced that Apple's design lead was leaving earlier this year.
• No formal date was provided at the time.

Apple design chief Jony Ive is no longer part of Apple's leadership page on apple.com, as spotted by The Verge. It was announced earlier this year that Ive would be leaving to set up his own design shop, but no date for the departure was given.

Ive first joined Apple in 1992 and has been head of its design operations since 1996. During that time Apple has become synonymous with forward thinking design that while not pleasing everyone, certainly had an aesthetic. Ive's fingerprints are all over some of Apple's most iconic products, not least 12 years of iPhones.

Ive's new project is LoveFrom, a shop he is setting up with fellow designer Marc Newson. Apple is said to be a client of the new firm, although some believe that is simply a way for Apple to make the transition seem less worrying to investors.

With Ive now out of the picture, software and hardware design will fall under COO Jeff Williams. Williams is someone who many have tipped to eventually replace Apple CEO Tim Cook, although his design chops have been questioned. He's no Jony Ive, but who is?

We've known for about a month now that Jony Ive would be leaving Apple to start an independent design firm, but now documents from the US Patents and Trademark Office show that Ive filed for a trademark for the term "Lovefrom Jony".

In Ive's previous stated about leaving Apple, he did mention that Lovefrom would be the name of his new company; however, this trademark clearly shows that Lovefrom Jony will at least be apart of the new company in some capacity.

What's really interesting is these trademark documents mention goods and services that could fall under the Lovefrom Jony trademark. This list is quite extensive and covers a lot of categories such as drones, household appliances, cars, and much more.

You may remember that in Apple original statement, the company stated that Ive (along with his new company) would still be working with Apple in the future.

There's still no official word on exactly when Ive is leaving Apple as the original statement only mention that his deperature would take place "later this year".

A week ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article that alleged a high level of disfunction in Apple's design department, from Tim Cook's relationship with Jony Ive, to how Jony Ive ran — or didn't run — the design organization, and how all of that led to Jony's departure.

The following evening, Tim Cook emailed NBC to call the story absurd, distorted, and not recognizable as the company it claimed to describe.

Rather watch than listen? Hit play on the video above.

And, ever since, we've seen so many tea quotes, hot takes, sides taken, and… It's exhausting. I'm exhausted and I do this for a living. I can't even imagine how tired and over it you all now.

But, we haven't seen any real progress either. The Wall Street Journal is sticking by its story, and a week later, is continuing to promote it with blurbs like "Why hasn't Apple had a hit product in years? A look at the internal drama around the departure of its design chief helps explain".

For their part, Apple hasn't elaborated any further.

Nilay Patel from the Verge has said he thinks every word of the piece is true and well reported, even if he doesn't think change is bad. Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch said bits and pieces in the various stories over the past few days that are not, as he understands them, accurate, or represented in an accurate context.

And, of course, since this is the internet, People who delighted in the account have been labeled as haters and those who recoiled at it, dismissed as apologists.

But neither the original Journal story nor Cook's retort provided enough context to reconcile those two radically different points of view.

So, rather than punish the world with yet another tea spill or hot take, I'm going to try something different.

A cool take. That's right, as an opportunity to share information. And, hopefully, insight.

The Battery

From the Wall Street Journal:

Apple, like other companies, routinely holds offsites. They're meant to get teams together, outside the distractions of the main offices, to focus on specific projects — everything from brainstorming ideas to setting deliverables to presenting to executives.

Sometimes they're held nearby in South Bay. Sometimes in the city. Sometimes much further away.

Jony Ive lived in SF. So did a lot of the designers.

Steve Jobs used to work with Jony Ive on industrial design and Scott Forstall on iOS software, which included Greg Christie's human interface team.

When Steve passed away, Jony couldn't work with Scott Forstall. So, long story short, Scott ended up leaving and Jony ended up taking over design responsibility for software as well.

That included iOS 7, which was a complete redesign turned around in 9 months, less time than most incremental updates, but also on Apple Watch, an all-new product that Jony threw himself into to the point of mental and physical exhaustion.

When the Watch finally shipped, something had to change.

Managing the much larger human interface team was a lot more work than collaborating with the much smaller industrial design team, and traveling back and forth from Pacifica to Cupertino each day had become increasingly frustrating given the increased demands on his time.

Not having to deal with the day-to-day management of the new unified design team, and not having to go back and forth to Infinite Loop, especially as he shifted to working on Apple Park and Apple Retail, were seen as ways to give Ive back some of his own design time.

There were certainly big decisions to be made for iPhone X, like would it use a digital home button on the bottom of the screen for familiarity's sake, or would it risk an entirely new, gesture-based navigation system?

But it's hard to tell what to make of this story. Why arrive three hours late rather than not go at all, why listen to the presentations and not provide feedback rather than not listen at all?

The episode, if accurate, talks about how Ive interacted with his human interface team but doesn't reference the top of Apple at all.

And I say "if accurate" because TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino said:

For what it's worth, no one I know felt that way either.

As to the product magic of Ive and Jobs, they certainly collaborated on a staggering number of iconic products, from the iMac to the iBook, the iPod, iPhone and iPad, the Titanium Powerbook to the wedge-shaped MacBook Air… Also, some misses like the G4 Cube, iPod Hi-Fi, fatty nano, buttonless shuffle, the iPhone 4 antenna, and basically every mouse ever.

But Steve Jobs died in 2011. That's not an erosion. That's an ending… Everything Jony and Apple have done since, both magic and tragic, have been the result of something new and different.

The Portégés

Ive was Apple's leadership. Jobs had a few proteges, in a way one for each facet of his intense interests. Ive for hardware design. Scott Forstall for software. Tim Cook for Apple itself as a product.

Jobs was the glue that had held them all together but, post-Jobs, they had to all find their own relationships. And operations were always a function of design at Apple. Like we went over in the show last week with former Apple designer May-Li, you can't separate the two. You can't just make a drawing or CNC a part and expect a hundred million of them to just manufacture themselves.

As she said: People do not realize machines had to be invented and molecules had to be rearranged in order to support a great design.

When materials were hard to come by or changed at the last minute, or yields weren't as high as they needed to be, operations is what made sure they still shipped in days or weeks rather than weeks or months.

Look no further than the delays we've seen with some products, even after announcements, over the last few years. If anything, there's been a need for more operations-focus at the company.

Steve Jobs made sure Jony and design had almost unlimited power at Apple. You can see it in iOS 7. In the 18K gold Apple Watch. In the Designed by Apple in California book.

But even then, operations is what enabled that gold watch and those printed pages to ship. Same as they had during the Jobs era with products like the iPhone and iPad.

Before he passed away in 2011, Steve Jobs — the man who usually made every decision about everything he cared about at Apple — went on several medical leaves. During those times, he stayed as involved as he could, but he also trusted people he trusted to make those decisions when he couldn't. People like Cook, Ive, and Forestall.

Even when he was there, Jobs trusted people like Phil Schiller and Eddy Cue enough to let them do things he himself was initially against, like put iTunes and Safari on Windows and make the iPad mini.

Part of Apple's culture, the part that mitigates them against ever being rudderless, is having people responsible for everything important. People who might want and value sign-offs when they can get them but who know how to ship without them when and if they have to as well.

That's why, when Ive withdrew from routine management, he left them intentionally ruddered with new Vice Presidents. Industrial design with longtime team member Richard Howarth, and human interface with Alan Dye, who Ive had brought over from the graphic design group to spearhead the new look of iOS 7, irking a lot of feathers along with way.

One look at how many versions of iOS, watchOS, and versions of iPhone, iPad, and more recently even Mac that have shipped during the last few years shows that that culture is still alive and well.

Product Performance

I'm not sure what drama is explaining what dilemma. Apple is a profoundly different company than it was a decade ago. One of the other things Steve Jobs did before he passed away was recruiting chipmakers into Apple, including Johny Srouji.

So, over the last ten years, we've gone from Macs using commodity components distinguished from commodity PCs by their hardware and software aesthetics alone, to iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and more, that run almost entirely on custom components.

John Gruber and Ben Thompson spoke about that at length last week, link in the description.

What didn't change so much is Apple's cadence when it comes to major new products.

The iMac debuted in 1993. It wasn't a new category but a modern re-interpretation of the all-in-one Steve Jobs introduced back in 1984. After, sure, first introducing the Lisa in 1983.

The iPod debuted in 2001, 17 years after the Mac and 8 years after the iMac.

The iPhone and iPad, which both spun out of Project Experience Purple, debuted in 2007 and 2010, some 6 and 9 years after the iPod.

The post-Jobs era started in 2011.

The Apple Watch debuted in 2015 and shipped in 2016, roughly 8 and 5 years after the iPhone and iPad respectively.

AirPods debuted in 2016, around a year after the Apple Watch.

The HomePod debuted in 2017, about a year later. And we can certainly argue it's major-ness but it is a category Apple was accused of completely missing out on up until the moment of its launch.

Then there's Apple's augmented reality glasses, which rumor has it will debut sometime next year or the year after. Their automotive efforts, if they don't ultimately choose to shelve it like they did the television set, sometime after that.

You could include the 1999 iBook, which rejuvenated Apple's laptops, and 2008 MacBook Air, which redefined all modern laptops, in the Jobs-era list, and the 2019 Pro Display XRD, which seeks to redefine the reference monitor, in the post-Jobs list, maybe the 2015 Apple Pencil as well.

If we go beyond atoms and include packets, there's Apple Music, Apple News, and Apple Arcade and Apple TV+ on the horizon.

Like in the Jobs years, there were misses as well. HomePod, I just mentioned. The butterfly keyboards, obviously. The 2013 Mac Pro. The years without Mac updates. Still every mouse ever.

I'm not sure speed between major products is the best measure, but for the sake of context and how Apple fits into the industry at large, I can't think of many or any other company that's managed to put together a string of products with bigger cultural impact over as long period of time.

The Apple Watch, released in 2016, had the second biggest acceleration of any product in Apple history, behind only the iPad.

AirPods may not retail at a high enough price to move the revenue needle as much, but they've been so successful they've become a meme, and like the iPod and iPhone before them, they're shaping the next generation of products in their category.

Taken together, Apple has said the revenue for wearables is already 50 percent more than iPod was at its peak.

I know that's not iPhone money but, really, nothing is. Take away the massive distortion and seemingly mass confusion of one of the most profitable products in history, and you see Apple's other businesses are really pretty damn good businesses.

There's a story from 2010, when Apple introduced the iPad. It went like this — Only Steve and Jony could make the iPad. Only Tim could figure out how to sell it for $500.

Again, I'll refer everyone back to last week's show with May-Li, who worked on the original iPhone and other projects after Steve had passed away, for a first-hand account of how operations has always supported design at Apple. Because it had to.

Happiness at Home

It's interesting to read about disconnects at the top, drama, and dilemmas, and Tim Cook trying to keep Jony Ive happy over the years.

And there certainly must have been something terrifying and energizing knowing Jobs would be coming to the ID studio for his regular check-in, everyone racing to get everything ready to show him. But, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Cook isn't Jobs any more than Ive is Cook. Something they all knew and appreciated deeply. Which is why Apple had them both.

That said, it is fun to watch the reactions when Cook pauses to describe the intricacies of a staircase at an Apple Store, or grabs an iPad Pro from someone in marketing to give a full-on demo to a special guest in the hands-on area.

Almost as though what he apparently lacks in attention to design he makes up for in attention to design.

Arthur Levinson of Genentech, Ronald Sugar of Northrop Grumman, Andrea Jung formerly of Avon, now Grameen American, and Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States, joined the board during the Jobs era and remain on it today. As does Tim Cook who joined just before Jobs passed away.

Robert Iger of Disney joined a very short time later. Since then, Bill Campbell of Intuit retired in 2014 and Millard Drexler of J Crew in 2015.

Apple did replace their software and retail experience with two new, finance-centric directors in James Bell of Boeing and Susan Wagner of Blackrock,

But it was also after a series of controversies from no-poaching agreements to stock backdating, and a period of rapid financial activity, including a 7 to 1 stock split in 2014 and the launch of a massive repurchasing and dividend program.

Apple's stock is 15% below its record high… which was just 8 months ago. Not back during the Steve Jobs era or when the iPad launched or before Jony went off to work on Apple Park… But while Apple was rudderless, filled with drama, and in the midst of a dilemma?

This better matches what I and other people who cover Apple closely have heard. It would have been great to hear more of this perspective throughout.

The Watch

The former goes without saying. The latter is hard to reconcile. Even if we leave out all the software, including the massive iOS 7 redesign and the launch of watchOS, tvOS, and just now, iPadOS, and focus only on the industrial design side, that still leaves the Apple Watch, the original iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, the new Apple TV, iPhone 5, iPhone Plus models, AirPods, HomePods, iPhone X, the 2015 MacBook, 2016 MacBook Pro, 2018 MacBook Air, the 2018 iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, and the new Mac Pro and Pro Display.

If anything, the scale and cadence have only escalated over the last 8 years.

This is how product development works at Apple. There were two purple projects, P1, an iPod phone led by Tony Fadell and P2, an OS X phone led by Scott Forstall. P1 never shipped. P2 became the iPhone.

Steve Jobs didn't believe in the iPad mini. Eddy Cue fought for it and eventually Steve relented and said they'd do it, but it was on Eddy if it failed.

Like May-Li attested to last week, a thousand nos for every yes isn't make believe. Everything is considered and reconsidered, factored and refactored.

If no one had pushed back it literally wouldn't have been Apple.

Here's a thunker — What could the first few couple of Apple Watches have done if they weren't paired with iPhones? Not even tell time in the precise Mickey-foot-tapping way they were designed to do.

Like early iPods and iPhones that had to sync with a PC to do much of anything, the Apple Watch was just too highly constrained to handle even basic computing functions on its own. And it's safe to say everyone knew it.

There were disagreements about which specific features it should and shouldn't ship with, and frankly, there probably should have been more given the lack of focus of the first generation, but again, it's the kind of arguments we all want people inside Apple to have.

The fashion aspect, though, is what got the Apple Watch attention beyond just the computer industry and early adopters.

It was different than iPod fashion, which tweaked colors and designs at the low end almost every holiday shopping season. It was high-end fashion. Something that got fashion press to the events and got Apple Watch into Vogue and other fashion magazines, and onto the wrists of celebrities.

The gold Apple Watch was quickly retired but the Hermes one persists to this day — as does the Nike one. Because, as we've seen over the last few years, it's the fitness and now the health features that have given it that clarity of purpose.

Bus Throws

This, again, resonates with me, and is in line with what I've also heard, but again this simple rationality just doesn't get as much ink as the insinuations of drama.

It's easy to look back and say that, following the death of Steve Jobs, Jony Ive leaving Apple was inevitable. But, does that mean Apple has spent the last 8 years carefully planning and managing that departure, or has everyone involved spent that time doing everything they could to try and stave off that inevitability?

It's weird to see a non-executive name-dropped in an article like this. As far as I can recall or Google, Manzari has only ever been in the press once before, when he joined Phil Schiller to talk about Portrait Lighting with Buzzfeed in 2017.

When I do see something like this, it always feels dirty, like some servicing of agenda or settling of accounts. Otherwise, why grant everyone else anonymity but not this one fairly obscure person?

Who gains from that and what do they gain, exactly?

Also, according to people directly familiar with the matter, this anecdote is completely false anyway, which only makes it curiouser.

I'm going to skip ahead here, otherwise this will end up being as long as my Catalina video and no one wants that.

The Journal ends on this:

Jony's old design team reports to Evans Hankey, a long time member of the team who, according to everyone I've ever spoken with, and to quote May-Li from last week's show, gets stuff done. In other words, she's a force of nature.

Evans reports to Jeff Williams just like, before Jony's brief return to day-to-day management, she and before her Richard Howarth, and before and between them, technically Jony himself, reported to Tim Cook, an industrial engineer with an M.B.A.

But, with Sabih Khan now taking over as senior Vice President of operations at Apple, it's best to think of Jeff Williams being more like what Tim Cook became to Steve Jobs — a complement.

In this case, someone to run product, at least for now, who knows, as we begin the era at least partially after Jony Ive.

This is Tim

Now, Tim Cook's response to the Wall Street Journal article pulled no punches. From Dan Byers:

It's incredibly rare for Tim Cook to so publicly rebut a story. Most of the time, when faced with what they consider to be negative, even false press, they'll typically just stay quiet and take it. Anything less, to them, is punching down.

And that's usually a good strategy. Wait a day and another sensational story will come up and our ever-shortening attention spans will spin around and take momentary distraction in that instead.

When Apple or Tim Cook do speak out, it keeps the story going in the news cycle and it ups the stakes considerably by putting Tim Cook's name, reputation, and credibility on the line.

The last time Apple responded this forcefully was when Bloomberg published its Big Hack story claiming Apple, Amazon and many other companies were running servers that had been compromised at a hardware level by Chinese Intelligence. Bloomberg has stuck by that story even as independent audits have come back showing no evidence or support for it at all.

But why do it in this case?

I think many people probably read the Journal story as a hit piece. On the eve of Jony Ive leaving Apple, after 30 years of service, 30 years that reshaped not just Apple but the entire industry, they read it as an effort by a few frustrated, thirty, disenfranchised individuals to paint Ive as having abandoned his peers and his team, and as a consequence having failed to keep the magic or success of Steve Jobs alive.

And, for many in the company, that's not only ridiculous but reprehensible. They're not allowed to speak publicly on Apple's behalf. But Tim Cook certainly can.

And by sending that email, rather than this story simply becoming accepted as fact and woven into urban legend, they make sure that email dogs it with every reference and in every b-roll, every time it gets regurgitated now and into the future.

Whether you ultimately choose to believe the Journal's account or Cook's, or you recognize that simple narratives seldom if ever capture the true complexity of human relationships, is of course entirely up to you.

But I'd love to know what you think now, at the end of all of this. So, hit up the comments and give me your coldest of cold takes.

There's an article on Jony Ive going around that, while I think it absolutely captures the frustration of a segment of people, also feels like it represents an extreme perspective, reaction, and yes, even agenda, from those people.

Now, that's not unusual when big changes happen. Some people are happy with and some people are not but it's also not all there is to the story. In fact, it can be only a very small part of the story, to the point where other people directly involved -- sources even more familiar with the matters, if you will -- would call some of those stories abjectly false.

And if it's all wrapped up in a deeply cynical narrative about Apple's current position in the market, with no context or clarity as to why and compared to who, when misses like HomePod are emphasized and huge hits like Apple Watch, which is currently bigger than iPod at its hight, are dismissed.

Most especially when people whose jobs depend on them being skeptical promote the story not with questions or attempts at confirmation but with abject glee over all the tea being spilled regardless of whether or not a cup was even knocked over, then I don't even know what's happening anymore but I do know what to do about it.

Find someone super smart and super talented who was actually there, who worked on prototyping and design at Apple, going back to the days of Steve Jobs and the original iPhone and who understands how and why the design culture at Apple works the way it does.

Rather watch than read? Hit play on the video above!

Rene Ritchie: Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me.

May-Li Khoe: Thanks for having me. It's great to see you.

Rene: Your background, just for anybody who doesn't know already, is in design and prototyping.

May-Li: Design, prototyping, and most recently, it's also in design leadership.

Rene: I loved what you were writing on Twitter because the news last week broke about Jony Ive leaving Apple and instead of piling on with a hot take, you decided to share some of your experience on actually working with people in industrial design. It was fascinating to me.

May-Li: I feel like, having been in this industry for 20 years -- I was at Apple for 7.5 -- it just feels like so many people don't understand the nature of what makes Apple so great and what is it that allowed Apple design to succeed. It's also like a plunge into cold water for a lot of Apple designers when they leave Apple and realize that nothing else works that way.

It's always been a big mystery to me because so many people say, "We really value design and we really care a lot about design," and, yet, when you look at a lot of the rest of the industry, it's a dramatically different environment around the design team.

Rene: It's not the same culture.

May-Li: It's not the same culture. Exactly. I think people don't talk about that. Either that or they don't know. The crux of it is that the operations at Apple to support design -- the operations, the engineering, everything else around it allows the design to blossom and allows it to happen.

It isn't just like somebody goes off into a room, like Jony and Steve went off into a room and Jony made some miraculous sketches and then, unicorns and sparkles appear and then this design and then, question mark, question mark, question mark, profit.

[laughter]

May-Li: There's machines literally being invented, and molecules literally being rearranged in order to support amazing design. It's not just like the design work happens and then, we can all go to the beach. [laughs]

Rene: I think, to your point, people don't realize that you can say you want a chamfered edge, but you have to figure out the machine that's actually going to chamfer that edge for you. Then, you have to source all those machines. You have to get them into production, and you have to run at sufficient yields that you can actually sell those things for a non-obscene price.

May-Li: You've got to make sure that the machining that happens and the material you get is actually the material that you said you were getting, that it withstands a bunch of pressure. You need to machine the machines that pressure test. All of that stuff needs to happen within a certain kind of timeline across oceans.

I remember when Tim was named the successor after Steve and people were like, COO? Really? I was like, yes, because if there's one thing this company cannot screw up right now, it's its operations.

They make hardware and making hardware is hard. How many kick starters have we seen just bomb because people don't realize how hard it is to actually manufacture and fulfill a whole bunch of physical goods.

Rene: How many products don't ship or how many products ship that don't work?

May-Li: Exactly. It's that and it's also the way that the whole org supports design. I was looking around a little bit. One thing that's dramatically different is the role of PM. With respect to design, that works completely different at Apple as it does from the rest of Silicon Valley.

Rene: I always got the sense, at least on the software side -- I'm not as familiar with the hardware side -- but they had engineering product managers and then they had the actual coding project managers.

They all work together but the EPM is doing the scheduling, almost like the dispatch, making sure every train arrives at every station on time. The actual coding manager is making sure that all those bits get written.

May-Li: That's exactly right. The EPMs are making sure that all the trains are running, getting to the stations on time, lining up when they need to line up, that it all makes sense together.

I think a lot of the other organizations suffer because they don't have that. I think a lot of other organizations also suffer because they've got too many cooks in the kitchen because there's feature-level product ownership alongside design and engineering. That's something that never happened at Apple while I was there.

There were product owners, which were largely like the SVPs, who had to ensure that decisions were made and roles were clear and everything made sense together at a high level but there weren't a whole bunch of feature-level product owners telling designers what to do or even really collaborating with designers. I remember there was this vibe of, I got to talk to a designer.

[laughter]

May-Li: Which there doesn't seem to be in other places.

Rene: It was a very design-driven culture. Again, from the software side, there was always DRIs, Directly Responsible Individuals, I'm guessing because Steve needed to know who to yell at. [laughs] That was their primary function. On the hardware side, it seems like it was a very small, very collaborative group.

May-Li: On the design side, yeah, definitely. A very small, very exclusive, super collaborative and they did collaborate with groups outside of ID as well, collaborate with HI as well. This was, talking about the old world. There's a whole new world now.

[laughter]

May-Li: Obviously, which I'm sure all of your listeners have read up copious amounts about probably.

Rene: That's the thing. Most of the stuff that's being put out now is either from people who weren't involved at Apple and just wanted to get a hot take out. In any organization, like in any family, there are going to be people who are less happy with change, like things the way they were, like things the way they're going to be.

Immediately after anything happens, you always get the disgruntled take, which may represent one person or three people but probably doesn't represent 20 people.

May-Li: No, it's true. I think, there's that, and then, also, I think it's hard if you haven't worked in design and you haven't worked in design at multiple organizations. It's tough to understand the nature of it.

Rene: If people aren't familiar, Evans Hankey -- is that how you pronounce her name?

May-Li: Mm-hmm.

Rene: She is now taking over industrial design and reporting into Jeff Williams, COO. What I've heard is that she's basically a force of nature and you seem to confirm that to me. [laughs]

May-Li: She's amazing. When I was working there, it was very clear that she made shit go. I have this way of putting things about operations at Apple. If you were to listen to the rhythm of work at Apple, if you were to make it audible and speed it up, you could hear music because there's a rhythm to it.

There's a rhythm and a predictability. There's a start, middle, and end to the seasons. There's a clip that everything runs on and makes sense together, partially because there's such strong project management. Mind you, the project managers are very clear that they're not calling the design shots. I'm talking about project management in general.

I feel like what it was like to work with Evans was that you knew certain things had to happen by a certain time. You knew what kinds of things had to happen by a certain time. Not necessarily defined creatively but she was there as like this motor, making the things go and making sure that everything that needed to happen was happening. That was a long time ago already now.

Rene: Great art is ship is like the off-sided quote, but that ship part is just what she handled.

May-Li: Absolutely, and it's been that way for a long time. She was definitely, I think, under celebrated because there was a stereotype of what people on the ID team look like and sounded like, so it was really easy to pass over her but even when I was there, everybody knew, Evans is making stuff happen.

There were some people in the organization who would complain and be like, "She's such a hard ass." The sound engineer and I were talking one time and he said to me, "You know, I bet nobody would be complaining that she was a hard ass if she was a guy."

[laughter]

May-Li: She just was a great leader. She didn't necessarily lead in this way that was super visible where she did some sort of song and dance in front of everybody. No, it was just like she made sure shit happened.

Rene: The thing that was also wild to me is that we keep seeing these articles, basically, bemoaning the lack of design at Apple. It is fine to criticize any individual product. For example, I think the smart battery case is super-efficient, but it's got that big whole dump on it.

All design is compromise but people saying that Apple has lost its design culture, when you look back at the iPad Pro and the Mac Pro and the Pro display and the iPhone 10 and Apple Watch 4, and this is just in the last two years, I find those kinds of takes really hard to just mentally digest.

May-Li: It's about the organization's support around the design team much more than it is about whether or not there's creativity or great designers inside the organization.

Apple does not make rash decisions is the other thing I think people don't realize. This announcement came out now but when things like this happen, an organization like Apple, who makes hardware, which is hardware is hard, so they know what they're doing. They've been transitioning towards this configuration for a long-ass time. That's the other thing. [laughs]

Rene: It's unforgiving. You can ship a software patch. It's real hard to ship a hardware patch.

May-Li: People need to understand a lot of things to wind up in that position at Apple, especially because of the nature of hardware. That type of decision just doesn't happen overnight.

It's likely that a lot of the changes that you see now or changes that you've already seen have been aspects of them figuring out how this new world is going to work for a very long time. Actually, I think that's already been confirmed publicly.

[laughter]

Rene: I want to say obvious, but everything is always obvious in hindsight. It was obvious that Jony was off doing Apple Park and working on Apple retail and he said as much. He showed up at the Union Square Apple store opening. He was deeply involved in that, but Apple still needed to ship iPhones. Apple still needed to ship Apple Watches, all those things.

The amount of new Macs they've shipped over the last two years is staggering. It seems like they're executing really, really well now and that doesn't just happen. That has to, like you said, be carefully managed.

There have been a bunch of different reactions, at least, I've heard. Some of it is, "Jony is just going on to his own company but he trained all of us. We spent a decade or more working with him and we want to make him proud." It's not, "I'm just going to start adding knobs. We're going to start adding knobs to everything now that he's leaving."

Making Apple design was one of his greatest product achievements, not just the products they designed but the team that goes about designing it. Sure, some people are going to go into rebellious youth stage and say, "I always wanted to do this," the way that we got IOS7 after IOS6 but all of that is informed by everything that they've done with Jony for the last decade.

May-Li: That's absolutely true. I felt the same way when Steve passed, that there's this ethos that's instilled in you after working there. You almost can't get anybody's voice out of your head after you've worked with leaders like that. That voice stays inside your head and carries you forward.

I think that a lot of the stuff that's also really hard to relate to for people is exactly what you were saying, which is the organization has been deliberately designed around design. That's the whole point.

The product is the organization. At some point in time when you're that high in creative leadership, you're designing the organization. You're designing the team so that it can execute. You're no longer directly designing the products.

I think that the image I imagine in a lot of people's heads is Jony design output when it's really been a combination of Jony and other leaders designing the organization and their own exit from it. That's what you're supposed to do as a leader.

Rene: Absolutely. It's the old get-run-over-by-a-bus thing. Part of your job is making sure someone's there if it ever happens.

May-Li: Exactly. The ethos is so deep but more than anything, I think the thing about Apple that's underappreciated are those operations to support design, the engineering, both on the product design, as in the hardware product design side and the software side.

Everything is always in service of this broader vision, which is properly kept, ideally, by the curators at the top, which is what, a lot of the time, the leadership serves. You've got great people cranking out the ideas at the bottom.

What needs to get preserved is that curation and the operations to support it and, of course, the amazing engineering chops that are throughout the organization, and the scientists, and everybody else. Those things don't go away overnight. Those things aren't attached to one name.

Rene: There was that old saying that Steve and Jony came up with the iPad, but it took Tim to figure out how to sell it for $500 at quantity. To your point, I don't think that people appreciate that, not big O operations like actually doing logistics and fulfillment but small O operations permeates every organization at Apple, much as design does, much as just the pure culture of the company.

The software engineers have to finish that code by the time that IOS launches and the hardware engineers, everybody has to get their job done. Through the EPM program, that's hugely operational.

May-Li: The EPM role, it exists in certain other hardware organizations but the difference in role between EPM and PM and that sort of thing is totally different in other organizations. It's funny because I'll speak to other design leaders about design organizations and different companies.

Sometimes, I'll talk about the way that design was set up at Apple and everybody just shakes their head and they're like, it's not like that anywhere else.

[laughter]

May-Li: I'm like, but why? If it worked so well, why is nobody putting more work into replicating it? I don't know.

Rene: What was funny to me was this big article yesterday that everyone is talking about where it said a bunch of designers were "rudderless" at Apple because Jony wasn't there to approve or disapprove designs.

Everyone I've spoken to is like, "Never happened. We've been raised to do this. We know exactly what to do with our designs. When he's there, it's amazing but I can make absolutely any decision I have to make as a design lead at Apple." Of course, that's the entire reason that they were trained in the entire job that they have.

May-Li: That thousand-no's-for-every-yes thing is very real. I think that's the other thing. Nobody is afraid to say it's not good enough yet, as you hear more of that 99 percent of the time. [laughs] Which is interesting because, in a lot of other organizations, you hear the opposite. It's good enough already.

Rene: I feel strange saying this to you because you worked in prototyping but in order to get to a thousand no's for every yes, you have to have 999 other things that they've said no to. There's a tremendous amount of work involved in getting to the one yes.

May-Li: That's absolutely right. It's so strange to me in some other places. I've come across other attitudes in the design world where people are like, "I don't want to do any work that gets thrown out." I'm like, "Are you kidding me?" [laughs] That's like 99 percent of what I spent my time doing when I was at Apple. Then, you get the one percent that goes through and it's amazing.

Rene: It's hard to get to the result without going through the journey. If you just sit there and plop it down, and there's no -- the Buddhists would say suffering, enlightenment through suffering -- but that's the version of this that I think happens. A constant reiteration leads to the inevitable result.

May-Li: It also makes people really fast and really creative.

[laughter]

May-Li: Because you have to go through so many iterations. You're just going to come up with lots of things. Then, the other thing is the development process is nonlinear. I think, in a lot of places, people set a target and they're like, we're going to build this thing. Here's what we need to do to get to the MVP.

I was talking to a veteran Apple designer the other day who left Apple and was like, "What is this MVP business? I just heard about MVP and I heard it doesn't mean Most Valuable Player. It means Minimal Viable Product. Why would I do that?" [laughs]

Rene: Whereas, Apple is really good at getting to Minimal Delightful Product.

May-Li: Right, deciding that the minimum is not going to be below a certain bar. The development process is nonlinear. There may be things that just it's not the right time. It's not the right place. We can't do it for under $500. We already have the technology.

So many times, when people write something, they're like, "I have an idea of what you should do, Apple." I remember being on the inside and being like, yeah. [laughs]

Rene: I had a friend who went to work at Apple and I'm exaggerating for effect, but he basically said, "I've been reading the Internet. I know what you're doing wrong," and they said, "OK, what are you going to do?" He gave them a list of three things.

They took out a virtual box and they said, "Here's the first time we did it and these are the repercussions. The second time, we thought of it and here's the repercussions. The third time and these are all the reasons why we didn't do it but if you can think of it, bright Internet guy, you go ahead. You can fix all these problems." [laughs]

May-Li: Another emotion I often had when we were inside was this feeling that other people were shipping stuff that we would have cut, the gratuitous, flashy, as Jony would put it, I think he would say something like, "I feel like it's wagging its tail in my face," type of stuff.

[laughter]

May-Li: Other people would ship that.

Rene: I probably shouldn't say this, but I saw at an event one time, I was standing there and there was another Apple executive with me. We were chatting briefly and Jony walked up. They said something about the product and Jony's answer was...I think what people don't realize is the Apple executives in real life talk the way they do on stage.

They're very direct, very plain spoken. Jony just looked at them and goes, "Maybe. I don't know. We have what we think it is but once it gets into customer's hands, that's the only time we'll actually see what it really is, and we'll actually learn what they need from it."

That could have been in a white background in a video, but it really was what he thought about the products. He could do all the work that he could do but until it got into the customer's hands, he really didn't understand the product.

May-Li: I certainly never expected people to do all the things that they've done with the products that we've shipped.

[laughter]

May-Li: With him, specifically, or with anybody, really, that works in anything that's manufactured, and they're in a position of leadership is that, first of all, when you're in a position of leadership, people will interpret your micro facial muscles to try and get any data possible out of what they should be doing.

[laughter]

May-Li: Then, second, if you're doing that and you have a manufacturing chain behind you, then you can't just do stuff or have random reactions or speak random words because people will interpret them and you might wind up wasting I don't know how much money on a manufacturing line. [laughs]

He's also very good with that stuff. That was something that you could see start to permeate the rest of the team, that kind of thoughtfulness.

Rene: I think that's very core to your point is that this stuff doesn't exist in a vacuum. You have to have every stage along the process. Otherwise, you don't get what you design.

May-Li: That's right. I think the other thing that people don't always know is that those designs, sometimes, they were from years earlier and they had to be cryogenically frozen/put aside for some kind of other reason and then they'll come back.

Then, sometimes, things happen and they're a straight shot into production. That track of when something gets created and when it gets released or when it gets invented and when it gets released is not linear and it's not predictable.

A lot of things depend on an organization's life cycle, on a manufacturing chain's life cycle, what else is going on in the world. There could be, not able to get the price point to a certain point. There can be so many different reasons. Everything is contextual. Everything depends on the life cycle of an organization.

The decision to have people who are really strong operators take over certain positions is because the operations are what can't fail. If we get things into people's hands and they're not working or they're not arriving on time or the shipping and the fulfillment, any of that stuff, that makes people wonder, what else is going to be broken in the organization?

That's the stuff that can't go as it's always been coming up from the team. It's never been Jony off in a room, drawing by himself.

[laughter]

Rene: He'd be the first to tell you that.

May-Li: Right, never in recent history. Maybe it was years and years ago but as long as I was there, that was not happening anywhere in hardware or software. There was always a lot of generation happening.

Even some of the most successful things that Apple has shipped were ideas from intern projects. The routes for ideas to get up to leadership and be decided on and that direction to be set was what was really strong.

Rene: I had another friend who was going to work at Apple. He got offered a lot more money by Facebook and Google and startups. At startups, he had the option of getting IPO money, getting in early and getting a lot of money, but he went to Apple because he had an idea that he thought would revolutionize education.

He knew that it wasn't just ideas pushed down from the C level or the Senior Vice President level but that any engineer could contribute an idea and that idea could be taken and shipped to hundreds of millions of people. He thought there was no other place where he, as an individual, could have that big of an impact on, in his voice, the world than the way that Apple handles product development.

May-Li: That's so true. I think it's the openness and the willingness to hear a good idea come from anywhere is so important. I think that's another thing that's missing from a lot of other organizations. The position of responsibility to make those kinds of product decisions and make sure that those ideas are getting gathered and disseminated and curated, that doesn't happen quite the same way.

Rene: I think that's also top-down because there are those famous stories where Steve did not want to ship iTunes on Windows, but Eddie and Phil said, "We got to do it." He said, "Fine! If it goes bad, it's your fault," but he trusted them enough to do it. He didn't want to ship an iPad Mini and Eddie went and got another, "We have to do this." "Fine! If it goes wrong, it's your..." but still, he trusted.

It wasn't just his opinion. He was smart enough to have an opinion but to trust the intelligence and the commitment and the passion and the insight of the people that he'd hired to make decisions that maybe would be better than his. I think that permeated the culture as well.

May-Li: It's a lot of responsibility on the SVPs to be great curators and make everything really clear when it comes to those decisions.

Rene: I don't want to take up too much of your time. I know you're taking time away from your sabbatical to this all the way from France. I really appreciate it.

May-Li: Yeah, no worries at all. I was amused because when I wrote those Tweets, I admit, I got a little bit on my soapbox because it's always been this thing where everybody keeps talking about the design at Apple, but they don't realize that there's all these operations to support it. That's where the magic is.

Rene: We were talking before the show that, one of my favorite sayings from a friend of mine is that people love to mistake cynicism for intelligence. I think, a lot of times, the negativity gets rewarded and amplified and the more reasonable takes get drowned. [laughs] I appreciate you taking the time to share things from actual experience and actual insight. I think it just makes us all richer.

May-Li: Thanks so much for having me. It was really good to see you.

Rene: Thanks so much, May-Li. You can find her on Twitter @May-Li and on the Web @May-Li Khoe. If you want to get into the business yourself but don't know where to start, check out Brilliant. Every day, Brilliant publishes daily challenges that provide a quick and fascinating view into math, logic, science, engineering, computer science, everything you need.

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Earlier this week, the news broke that Jony Ive is leaving Apple. He's creating his own company, LoveFrom. But, LoveFrom is taking on Apple as a primary client. To figure out what all that means for Apple now and going into the future, I sat down to chat with John Gruber from Daring Fireball and The Talk Show.

Rene Ritchie: Thanks for joining me John. So, what was your initial reaction to the news?

Gruber: I think it's eyewash. He's actually starting a company with Marc Newson. LoveFrom is a questionable name. I do think they're going to work together for many years to come. They've already worked together on a bunch of things, including bringing Marc Newson in to design a bunch of Apple Watch straps.

Including using his, to me, iconic design for the Sport Band, that little tuck-under thing. It really comes from, what was it called, the Ike-...

Rene: Ikepod, yeah.

Gruber: Ikepod watch that he designed years ago. They obviously just have a mutual affinity and respect for each other. I think that this angle that he's still going to be working for Apple as a client is eyewash. I think that that's just spin.

Rene: Hope you like Frog Design pre-Ive.

Gruber: I don't think so. I don't think so at all. I don't. I could be wrong, but why does Apple still have a big industrial design team? I just feel like the way that Apple works, they're so insular, I just don't see how that would work. I could be wrong.

Rene: They did that thing for a while, where they pitted Chiat Day against, was it Hiroshi? I forget his name. It was a turtle...

[crosstalk]

Rene: I wonder if there was just a couple years of, "Hey, you guys want to compete with Jony," just to get everybody motivated.

Gruber: Maybe I'm overstating that. Maybe it is true. Where I could see that coming in would be for truly new products, like that Ive and Newson might, outside the company, play a big role in the design of AR glasses.

They're already working on that, so they may already be designed, but whatever new products that haven't been started yet, or are in the very early stages. Maybe he will play some sort of role. I think on a day-to-day basis, he's out. That's my take.

I kind of feel, and I don't think you have to read too much between the lines. From some of the interviews he's done, including like I mentioned yesterday, Ian Parker's tremendous, absolutely tremendous, very long profile for the New Yorker in 2015, where he talked about being really tired after doing the Apple Watch. I think that that profile came out before his promotion to chief design officer.

Rene: It was part two of a three-part saga.

Gruber: I just got done doing my podcast with Ben Thompson. Ben Thompson, I gave him the being right credit that saw he chief design officer as the first step out of the door. Timing-wise, you could say, "Well, he was still there for four more years, five more years," however long it's been. Maybe he wasn't right.

If you thought that was the beginning of the end of Jony Ive at Apple, three, four, or five years is probably about right. I give Ben Thompson credit for calling that, but I don't think it's been that clear. I think some people who maybe have been thinking that for a while, like, "Hey, maybe Jony Ive is on the way out," the story isn't that clear.

He took that job and then had hardware and software design people reporting to him. Then a year or so ago, he came back, and they even said he more of a day-to-day responsibility, more or less coinciding with wrapping up Apple Park.

Rene: Absolutely. One of the interesting things for me is that, if you talk to some people, they'll say, "Jony checked out when Steve died," that that was the greatest collaboration of his life. It was just never the same after that.

You talk to other people, and it's like, "He went to make Apple Park, and he went to make the Apple retail experience, because he had made so many products. He wanted to do something else, and that's when he checked out."

You and I also both know people on HI who still talked, or on industrial design, who still present to Jony on a regular basis. He's still involved promotion or photography, and all that kind of stuff. To me, it's like, it wasn't clear. The things that really interested Jony, he kept a close handle on. It wasn't a big deal that he stayed in San Francisco, because most of those teams lived in San Francisco, anyway.

Gruber: Yeah. His team has always worked fairly independently. They're sort of hermetically sealed, both physically and metaphorically. They've been sealed off.

Rene: Like literally, in a vault.

Gruber: Right. I think building another vault in a design studio near or in his house in San Francisco, it's just another vault. It's just like having two secure locations.

Rene: Absolutely. It saves you an hour-long commute, which is not the best use of his time.

Gruber: Right. It's like a story that I heard that springs to mind in terms of how involved he still is, is somebody told me, somebody who works on, let's say...I don't want to get too specific, but part of iOS software. They had a meeting with Jony Ive. This story was relayed to me a couple of weeks ago, after the Samsung Galaxy Fold debacle.

It came out and went to reviewers, and they were days away from supposedly selling to consumers. The reviewers would use it, and within 24, 36 hours, the thing was falling apart. It broke. Half the screen wouldn't work. The story that I was told was, back in February, there was a meeting. It was a software meeting. It wasn't even hardware.

Jony was still involved, and it was a meeting ostensibly about some new iOS software. It was the day that Samsung announced the Fold. It was the hot news of the day. It just was something they were talking about internally.

At this meeting about just something totally unrelated, Jony Ive said, "Oh, you know what? That's not going to work," and explained in exquisite technical detail why this folding screen that Samsung just unveiled to the public and was the sensation of the day, he was like, "Yeah, this is going to be unreliable. It's going to fail for these reasons. These are the pressure points that are going to cause the screen to malfunction."

He knew everything you could know about OLED folding screens and knew all the shortcomings of them to an exquisite technical detail, and was able to express it just the way that a great teacher can put things into the most understandable terms.

Rene: They were working on foldable displays for years. I think ultimately, they decided to fold them underneath, make the iPhone X, and not outside, to make a folding phone. That was his understanding of the application and limits of the technology.

Gruber: People who think he's been checked out for years, which is the phrase, I think, that has been bandied about, I don't think that's true at all. That's why this announcement happened. That's why he's not just continuing to hold the title. If he's really going to leave, they're going to announce it, and he's out.

Rene: You've already written extensively about the transition, but for people who aren't aware yet, when he leaves, Evans, who's running the industrial design team, and Alan Dye, who is running the human interface team, are going to report to Jeff Williams, which on the surface is a really odd choice. Both of us have spoken to Jeff Williams before.

I've spoken to him a few times, and every time, though, it hasn't been about operations. It's been about his deep love of product. He's obviously not an industrial designer. He's not an interface designer, but he seems to have incredible interest in just product in general.

Gruber: That's the one point that I think, I don't want to say I got it wrong, but by writing, I wrote my column about this news within an hour of it breaking. My take was pretty critical of this new hierarchy, where now that hardware and design chiefs report two levels below Tim Cook by reporting to Jeff Williams. Jeff Williams is operations. Why is this stuff under operations?

My joke was that they might as well report to the Xcode team or something. It just doesn't make any sense. I think design really needs to be that important. A day later, the thing I'm thinking that I missed in this announcement is that it was obviously primarily announcing that Jony Ive is leaving the company. Secondarily, it is, to me, the announcement that Jeff Williams is now the...

He's always been second in command. That's sort of what COO has always meant at Apple, from when Tim Cook was the COO and Steve Jobs was CEO. It isn't so much about operations as it is about just being second in command.

Jeff Williams has been running product for Apple Watch from the inception of the project. From when it was a concept to the present day, Jeff Williams has been leading. That's why Jeff Williams is always onstage announcing new Apple Watch hardware, because whoever is in charge of something tends to be the person Apple puts onstage to announce it.

What this means to me is more of a promotion. Do I think Tim Cook is on his way out? I don't think so. I don't know, but maybe. Maybe this is the first step. It could be.

Rene: What's super interesting is that Sabih Khan has been promoted to senior vice president and the executive team, but he reports to Jeff Williams and not Tim Cook. That's the first time I think that's ever happened.

Gruber: That's the other news that, I didn't even see that yesterday. What's his name again? I know his last name is Khan.

Rene: Sabih Khan.

Gruber: Sabih Khan is now senior vice president of operations. You don't create a senior vice president of operations unless that person is in charge of operations, right? Phil Schiller is in charge of product marketing. He is the man. What it says to me is that Jeff Williams isn't really running operations. Jeff Williams is co-CEOing with Tim Cook, and Sabih Khan is running operations.

Even though Jeff's title is still COO, that's just Apple code for second in command. I really think that's the second part of this. He's so much like Tim Cook, it's one of the fascinating little ying-yangs, is that Tim Cook and Steve Jobs were so different, so different in so many ways. Both their personalities, their demeanors, where they grew up, and what their focus was on in the company.

Whereas Jeff Williams is like a clone of Tim Cook. He's like Tim Cook 2.0. I don't know. I don't want to speculate too much about this. I don't want to be like, I hope there's no headlines like, "John Gruber thinks Tim Cook is on his way out." I don't think that.

Rene: You always need that person, right? Tim Cook was that for Steve Jobs for a long time before Steve Jobs got promoted to chairman.

Gruber: Yeah, I don't want to emphasize too much that he's like the CEO in waiting as much as that as second in command, he's got more on his plate. Who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if the two of them keep going as CEO and COO for another 10 or 15 years.

Rene: There was this great story about how Steve Jobs forced Tim Cook to go do marketing for a while. He hated it, but he said, "You have to know how to run this company." It seems like with Apple Watch, they said, "Jeff, you've got to go run product for a while, because you have to know how to run this company."

Gruber: On the other hand, and I know there's idle speculation that Tim Cook might go to politics or something like that. He obviously cares very passionately about some social issues and privacy. His two heroes who he's repeated the story many, many times to, always has pictures of them, are Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., not technology people.

I don't think that that's an affectation, like he wants to...I think Tim Cook is such a genuine, honest person, I really don't think it's an affectation. I think that they really are his personal heroes. I don't see him going into politics, though. I just don't see it. What I could see him doing would be, again, pure speculation, because even if this is going to happen, how the hell would I know about it?

It's not like Tim Cook is going to tell me. I could see him maybe taking chairman of the board title. Spending more of his time as the chairman of the board of Apple, petitioning and working on privacy policy, and maybe some other social stuff. Privacy is obviously at the forefront. Have Jeff Williams become CEO, and take over the day-to-day running of the company.

If that were to happen, we would look back to today and say, "Oh, that was obvious. Yeah, this was kind of obvious."

Rene: Even if, like you said, there's a decades-long run, one of the responsibilities, including protecting the stock, is making sure there's a succession. That's important.

Gruber: It's very clear at this point that that would be, what happens if Tim Cook gets hit by a bus? It's very, very clear that Jeff Williams is next in line. The other thing it could just be, maybe it's a little less dramatic than my spitball idea there that Tim Cook would take over as chairman of the board, leave day-to-day operations, and devote himself to privacy policy, or something like that.

It could be a lot less dramatic than that. It could just be taking some responsibility off Tim Cook's day-to-day plate, so that he doesn't burn out. Jeff Williams and Tim Cook are, by all appearances, get along together, great collaborators. If this makes Tim Cook less likely to burn out by giving more responsibility to someone he trusts completely, this clearly seems like it's part of that.

Rene: Which is what happened with Joz and Phil Schiller and a couple years ago, where he took on all of product marketing, so Phil could concentrate on App Store and a bunch of other things.

Gruber: Right, definitely, right.

Rene: What is your gut now when you have Evans Hankey doing industrial design, and Alan Dye, who's been doing human interface since iOS 7, I think, he took over?

Gruber: My curiosity is, what happened to Richard Howarth?

Rene: He wanted to design. I think Gurman actually wrote about it. He wanted to design and not manage, where Evans really is good at managing that team.

Gruber: That makes a lot of sense, and that explains why Howarth didn't leave.

Rene: Yeah, he was busy with iPhone X, I think, during that whole period.

Gruber: I think it could be good. I do think, and again, I'm a huge Jony Ive fan. Who isn't? He deserves all of the accolades that he's being given. I do think that there's a possible upside here. It's probably a good thing in general for hardware and software design to have their own chiefs.

I think that putting all of it under Jony Ive, I'm not saying it was a mistake, but I feel that, without a collaborator like Steve Jobs to edit, with nobody else above him to say, "You know what? No. We don't need to make the keyboard that thin."

Rene: Also, it would have been Scott, and Jony, and Scott did not get along, so it could not be both of them.

Gruber: Right, exactly. It would have been Scott. Post Steve Jobs dying, if there would have been separate hardware and software chiefs, it would have been him and Forstall, and they were...

Rene: [laughs] Famously.

Gruber: Yeah, famously did not really get along. I think the story is that Jony Ive, at some point after Steve Jobs died, just simply said, "If Scott Forstall is in a meeting, I won't be in the meeting." It was bad. Whoever's design taste you want to be a fan of, I think Tim Cook recognized that it was untenable to have two people that essential who couldn't get along with each other.

Rene: You can be brilliant people, not work together, and flourish in other circumstances when that happens.

Gruber: I think it's fair to say that Jony Ive is fundamentally a hardware person, a physical form factor. You just think back to all of the videos he's narrated. It's not like, oh, when they make those videos, Jony Ive, they just said, "Jony, show up at 11:00 AM. We'll have a script for you to read, do a take."

One of the things that I know for a fact is that those introduction videos, those Jony Ive-narrated videos, he's intimately, he's effectively the director. He is as intimately involved with the lighting, the camera swoops, the timing, and the sound as Steven Spielberg is when he makes a movie. He's directed those movies. Every single word he says is very carefully chosen.

When you think about them, they're almost always entirely about the physical object. That's his thing.

Rene: The tension with his minimalism and hardware is it means software has to be more considerate. If you're minimalist in the software, too, it creates a lot of tension in the usability.

Gruber: Yeah. I think his stewardship as the software design chief is questionable. It's clearly his lesser talent. I really feel safe saying that. I feel part of it, too, is that the software post-iOS 7 has always been subservient to the hardware. I think that the reset button that they hit was the right thing. Going to a minimalist, stark design...

Rene: The photorealism had gotten out of control in iOS 6.

Gruber: Right. I've written about this. I really do believe that it's true, is that it was more important to have the depth and texture in the pre-Retina days, because it was eye candy to mask the relatively crudeness of the pixels. Even at 163 pixels per inch, like the original iPhone, which when it came out, was the highest pixels per inch of any consumer product I had ever seen.

I remember looking at the original iPhone, in addition to just being amazed at the responsiveness and all sorts of other things, just thinking, "My god, this display is beautiful, because the pixels are so small."

163 pixels per inch, or dots per inch, a printer that only outputted 163 pixels per inch is a terrible printer. I probably couldn't see it now, with my aging eyes, but I remember when laser printers went from 300 to 600 DPI, being able to easily tell the difference side-by-side.

Rene: Or dot matrix in the old days.

Gruber: Yeah. The old pixel screens, especially on the Mac side of the things, where the pixels per inch was more in the lower, closer to 100 pixels per inch, it's really just a crude resolution. Doing things like making buttons look like they're lickable candy and stuff like that, anti-aliasing everything, and having textured backgrounds for apps that looked like leather, and all that stuff.

It all was a way to mask how crude the screens are. I do that in the Retina era, and iOS 7 is close to when that started, getting away from that was the right thing to do. You don't need to do that.

Overall, I really do think that having someone whose single responsibility is software -- in this case, it's going to be Alan Dye -- who can report right to Jeff Williams, not without consideration of the hardware, but can just be a wholehearted advocate for making the software as good and usable as it can be is probably better.

I just don't think it was ever Jony Ive's forte. Again, I don't think it was a mistake to put him in charge of it when they did. Just as a decade moves on, I think that him stepping away from it, and giving up the control of that, could be really good for Apple.

Rene: What are thinking in terms of the future of Apple design? What are you going to look for? Is it going to be the products they ship, the directions they go?

Gruber: My eye will be most on the software. I would really like to see the software take a turn towards a -- to put it succinctly -- go back to design is how it works. Again, huge fan of Jony Ive. His work is phenomenal. If I just want to criticize it a bit, I do feel that there's a tendency in his work to be a little bit more design is how it looks.

Rene: I think it's the minimalism thing. I think when people look at the thinness, and they look at the design, that's really just, he wants to go down to a slab in almost everything. He wants to eliminate anything that 80 percent of people don't use 80 percent of the time. I think that starts to create frustration for people who are on those border edges.

Gruber: I think Apple has been aware of this and has been self-correcting internally for a while. One thing is, no company can stay the same, especially in the technology industry. Maybe like a restaurant can, like our House of Prime Rib in San Francisco from all appearances, hasn't changed at all since 1955, and doesn't need to. It's hard to get a table. It's hard to get in, doesn't need to.

Technology isn't like that. Technology is the opposite of that. Every single product Apple sells today is going to be off the market in two years, hopefully. [laughs] They'll probably still be selling that same $999 MacBook Air, I guess. We're probably with that for the rest of our lives. For the most part, Apple's products turn over. I would like to see a return to more of an emphasis on how things work.

Again, I don't want to pin something single-handedly on Jony Ive, but on the brief podcast or whatever we call this video, it's hard not to look in Jony Ive's direction when we think about the keyboard issues with the MacBook Pro. It really has all of his hallmarks on it. They certainly look better, and being thinner is, in general, better.

Rene: Theoretically, they have good qualities like being stable, and things that you find beneficial in a keyboard.

Gruber: Right, but they don't work as well.

Rene: In practice, yeah.

Gruber: Again, this, to me, is a sign that Apple has already spent years, "OK, we went that way, now we're correcting," is look at the Mac Pro. The new Mac Pro really is clearly a workstation for serious professionals who need absolutely the most performance they can get, whether the performance is CPU, GPU, RAM, or fast SSD storage, or all of those things, maybe.

Whatever you need, that device is for you. The 2013, AKA trashcan Mac Pro, is, if you really just look at it in the abstract, especially now that it's been...I guess you can still buy one. Obviously, a replacement has been announced, and it's very different. The 2013 Mac Pro, it's not a good computer for actual workstation professionals. If you really think about it, it looks like Jony Ive's idea of a Mac Pro.

Rene: It was built to answer questions that the people who end up using it weren't asking.

Gruber: Right. Every single thing about it seemingly appeals to Jony Ive's personal sensibilities. It is small. It is gorgeous.

Rene: It's ingenious with the cooling.

Gruber: It is ingenious with the cooling. It makes clever use materials, and it's really completely unsuitable to the needs of professional workstation users. [laughs]

Rene: One of my favorite things that a mutual friend, John Siracusa, once said is that when Pixar was bought by Disney, you would no longer get those moments of sheer genius, but you probably wouldn't get the cataclysmic failures that result when genius misses.

That Apple post-Steve Jobs was similar to that. You wouldn't get the heights of Steve Jobs' product savvy, but also some of the big misses that Steve ended up shipping would hopefully would get mitigated.

I wonder if the same will be true after Jony, where that team might not have those moments of absolute inspiration that he had, but they'll also catch things that would have misfired, like that Mac Pro, or like the keyboard.

Gruber: We'll see. Again, it's really hard to criticize the man's work, but that's what we're here for.

[laughter]

Rene: It's worthy of criticism. That's the thing, is that it was so encompassing, it's worthy of it.

Gruber: There's an apocryphal, I think -- I don't think it's actually a quote from Albert Einstein, but it's been attributed to him -- that everything should be as simple as possible, but not more so. There's different, slight variations on the quote, because like I said, I think it's apocryphal, but it's a fantastic sentiment. I feel that applies to thinness as well. The MacBooks should be as thin as possible, but not more so.

I can't help but think that with these current generation keyboards, it went into more so territory. They're too thin. Why not? Again, maybe Jeff Williams, as a practical thinker, is the type of person that says, "You know what? No.

"We're just going to make the damn things a half a millimeter thicker, leave the extra half a millimeter keyboard travel, and have these keyboards rated for two million keypresses before key failure," or something like that.

Rene: It doesn't have to be different than every other laptop, it just has to be the best laptop.

Gruber: Right.

Rene: There's another, I don't think they have this at Apple Park, but at Infinite Loop, it was famously, they had, "Simplify, simplify, simplify," in the marketing room, but then two of the simplifies were scratched out.

Gruber: That's good. I like that. I'd never heard that before, but it makes a lot of sense to me. That's a good reminder. I should buy a sign like that.

Rene: John, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.

Gruber: No, it's a lot of fun. What a day to be, like I said, to be an Apple commentator. It's really interesting times, right?

You can find John @gruber on social and at Daring Fireball and The Talk Show.

With the news that Jony Ive is moving on from Apple after nearly thirty years with the company, that got many people thinking about what he meant to the company. (Spoiler, a lot!) Ive was passionate about what design could do, and you see that when he gets on stage at WWDC back in 1997 to talk about it.

In the video (around the 31 minute mark), you can see a much younger Phil Schiller introduce a one, Jonathan Ive, the Director of Design at the time to talk about design at Apple. We must warn you, the sight is something to behold.

Jony Ive has a full head of hair, a mustache and his brilliant British accent that became synonymous with Apple promo videos. He starts by talking about Apple's approach to design so people can better understand what they were doing at the moment and where they were heading in the future. This was a prelude to the iconic iMac G3 in 1998.

Ive touches upon the disparity between the Apple designs they were working on and the products that were being sold. At this time, Apple was really struggling financially and was near bankruptcy until the iMac changed its fortunes.

He goes on to make clear how important Apple's commitment to design is. This foreshadowed the painstaking approach the company ended up taking with the iPod, iPhone, MacBook Air and iPad to create truly iconic products.

Check out the video to see all of Jony Ive's comments during the 1997 WWDC. He is truly enlightening.

Why Jony Ive is leaving Apple

What you need to know

• Tim Cook has emailed Apple employees about the departure of Jony Ive.
• Cook also announces the promotion of Sabih Khan to Senior Vice President and the Executive Team.
• Cook affirms Jeff Williams takin on design reporting at Apple.

Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, typically emails the entire company when something big happens. There have been few things as big, internally, as the news of Jony Ive leaving to start his own company, LoveFrom, but Apple retaining that company and Jony's services going forward.

Buzzfeed obtained a copy of Tim Cook's email on the subject.

ET is the executive team, or Tim Cook, Jeff Williams, and the group of senior vice-presidents that meet every Monday morning and otherwise guides Apple through its business, short and longterm business decisions.

I'm not sure if there's ever been a SVP at Apple, or member of the ET, that didn't report directly to Tim Cook before. At least no one that comes immediately to mind. And yes, Khan was part of the famous Tim Cook story involving a supply chain problem where Tim looked up and asked "why are you still here?" and Khan drove straight to the airport and got on a plane.

He's to Jeff Williams what Jeff Williams was previously to Tim Cook in the operations organization.

I have so many thoughts on this. Check out the video I posted last night or read the column if you prefer.

A while ago I had the chance to chat briefly with Jeff, and he mentioned how he sees product. He thinks deeply about design but not just the industrial or human interface aspects, but the human and social repercussions. I think that's a consequence of his running health products at Apple over the last few years.

Prior to Jony Ive, I believe HI was technically in the software engineering org but it didn't really matter because they really reported into Steve Jobs. There'll never be another Steve and there'll never be another Jony, but there'll always be someone new.

We'll only ever be able to judge Jeff, or whomever else ultimately becomes SVP of Design at Apple, based on what they ship.

Wow, I mean. On one hand, I'm devastated. As someone who started out in the business as a designer, Jony Ive and his relationship with Apple was just everything I looked up to and aspired to be.

On the other hand, though, as someone no longer in design, Jony Ive set free but still connected to Apple is something I really, deeply feel.

But, sorry, first. I wasn't going to do this write anything else today. I was going to wait and think on it a bit, and do a deeper, more forward-looking column tomorrow. But then, you guessed it, the Internet happened.

Hot takes began raining down like meteors in a Michael Bay movie. And, as expected a lot of them were just terrible. Like terrible set in comic sans terrible. That why, I ultimately decided to split my coverage in two. To get something short out today and the focus on something deeper for tomorrow.

Exit Jony

That's according to Tim Cook, Apple's CEO.

OK. So what does all this mean?

First, Jony has literally been at Apple since the second coming of Steve Jobs. When it comes to personal computing, he's been there, designed that. He's won more awards and been on more patents than entire companies. Combined.

He's a big part of the reason almost all phones are now singular slabs, why every laptop for a long time was as wedged as air, and why it was so hard for so long to tell any other tablet apart from the iPad. He was the design lead not just for Apple but for the industry.

But he's also a designer. A passionate, beyond talented designer, who outside of a few projects for Product Red, hasn't been able to design much else in two decades. Not a set of chairs or a desk, not a bicycle or a personal jet plane, not a set of knives or grandfather clock.

He's designed the best selling products in the history of best selling products, but that's all he's been able to design. That is, aside from his recent flirtation with Apple Park and Apple Retail.

Why would Jony leave Apple only for his new design company, LoveFrom, to be hired by Apple before it even officially launches sometime next year?

Probably because it's win/win for everyone involved.

First, Apple's no stranger to working with outside design companies. Prior to the age of Ive, Frog Design helped make Apple's products iconic. Apple's also worked with outside ad agencies in the past, with whom they created some of the most memorable ads of all time.

Jony is the reason they haven't been doing it… since Jony. And now that they might start doing it again, either in name only or as a real collaboration, time will tell, it'll be with — you guessed it — Jony. And with Marc Newson, who's joining Jony at LoveFrom, after spending the last few years with him at Apple, not only shaping products in his own right, but as a kindred spirit in a way no one else could since the passing of Steve Jobs.

Second, Jony not only knows everything Apple has done up until now, he knows everything the company is currently working on for the future. His team has been pushing out designs not just for the next generation of products like glasses and cars, but prototyping and brainstorming generations after that.

Having some extra insurance wrapped up around that is in everyone's benefit. Especially because, third, it pre-empts a ton of silly, speculative headlines around what if Google or Samsung or Huawei or whatever competition hired LoveFrom and Jony.

Fourth, it keeps Jony in the Apple family, even if he's moved out and gotten his own space, and that doesn't just cut down on the neighborhood drama, it keeps up the feels in the family.

Enter Evans, Alan, and Jeff

She's not very well known outside Apple at all, but by every account I've heard so far, Evans is beyond solid. She's been effectively running Industrial Design for years, since almost after Jony left day-to-day management there to focus on Apple Park and Apple Retail, and she deserves a ton of credit for a lot of what the team has done over the last few years.

And, yeah, feel free to transform that into blame if you're super salty and spicy about the butterfly keyboard, but it takes a company to let that ship, and I can get into that in a follow up video if you want me to, let me know in the comments, but it's probably fairer to judge her by the next keyboard than this one. Just like the next AirPods and, you know, next design generation of iPhones.

Having her and Alan Dye, who's effectively been running HI since iOS 7, report into Jeff Williams is going to be a head scratcher for a lot of people.

It's a bold choice but I'm not sure it's a bad one. Neither Evans nor Alan are being promoted at this point, and having them go back to reporting into Tim Cook, like they did when Jony was off working on Apple Park, would have felt to me more like Apple had no other idea what to do with them.

Jeff, by contrast, has been running Apple Health and Apple Watch for years. And not just the way Dan Riccio runs some special projects groups or Eddy Cue runs Apple TV. Jeff is incredibly detail oriented and has a real passion for design.

Part of the reason Sabih Khan was promoted to Senior Vice President of Operations was so that Jeff could spend more time focusing on product, including design.

Also, Apple doesn't just mint senior Vice Presidents, let alone C-level execs.

Even two of the most important hires in the history of the company, Jony Srouji who runs silicon and John Gianandrea who runs machine learning took some time to get their SVP power-ups.

If Apple is considering anyone for Senior Vice President of Design, I wouldn't expect to hear about it until after some time passes a big new product or version launches.

LoveFrom, WithLove

That's according to Jony.

There's a crucial point there. Apple is absolutely the sum of their people, from Steve Jobs to Jony Ive to Tim Cook, and all the way through. But, everyone will leave eventually. There is a future where none of the current leadership, where maybe none of the current people, will be there anymore. For Apple to last — to truly last — it has to have a soul beyond any single person.

The most important product everyone works on every day isn't the Apple Watch or iPad or Mac or even the iPhone. It's Apple. It's making Apple into something that can not just survive but thrive even after any of them.

Now, you're going to see a lot of people claim Jony checked out of Apple after Steve Jobs passed. Or shortly before he took on the very different challenges of Apple Park and Apple Retail.

And, for some people, even at Apple, both those things are true. For others, for the ones still working with and presenting to Jony on a regular basis, it's going to sound beyond ridiculous.

But the internet, like people, isn't good with multiple truths.

People aren't as simplistic as catchy headlines and hot-takes make us want to imagine. And situations seldom as extreme. We're complicated. We're contextual. And so are our passions and relationships.

Jony led the teams that designed everything at Apple. Then the teams that designed the places to put all those teams and all those things.

He looked upon the breadth of his product portfolio and had no worlds left to conquer. Imagine how that must feel to one of the greatest industrial designers in history. And then imagine what doing something like LoveFrom must feel like, with one of your best mates, and a deal that lets you still create with Apple but also create beyond Apple. Create anything. Whole new worlds. Whole new challenges and potentials.

Product Red electric bikes. Bead blasted aluminium hot tubs. Yo Siri, bubbles. Whatever he wants, can dream up, and will into production.

Ok. It's going to take me a while to really process this. Not only what it'll mean for Apple going forward in the post Jony Ive as chief creative offer age, but what it will mean for Jony Ive and LoveFrom, and what we'll see from both in the not so distant future.

So, for now, I want to thank Jony Ive for everything he's contributed over the course of his career at Apple, one of the most impactful careers in the history of design and consumer products, and I want to wish both Apple's Industrial Design Team and Jony and LoveFrom the absolute best going forward.

Design only exists in the moment of its successful application. And that's the only way to judge Apple and Jony Ive's work going forward. Based on what they ship.

At least that's what I think. Now, I'd love to know what you think. So hit up the comments and let me know.

What you need to know

• Jony Ive leaving his position as Chief Creative Office at Apple.
• Ive is forming a new company called LoveFrom (with Marc Newson), and Apple will be LoveFrom's first client.
• Alan Dye, head of Human Interface and Evans Hankey, head of industrial design, will now report to COO Jeff Williams

Jony Ive, who collaborated with Steve Jobs on projects from the iMac to iPhone to iPad, and lead the company through Apple Watch and AirPods, is leaving later this year to form his own company, LoveFrom... Which will have Apple as a primary client when it begins operations next year.

From Apple:

Tim Bradshaw, reporting for the Financial Times:

Instead of promoting or hiring a new Chief Creative Officer, Apple is moving the current head of Human Interface, Alan Dye, and head of industrial design, Evans Hankey under COO Jeff Williams' operations organization.

From Apple:

Williams has been running both health in general and the Apple Watch product at Apple since those efforts began. He has a deep love of product and a stronger Operations org and these new reports will let him delve more deeply into that aspect of the company.

Needless to say, everyone will be digesting these developments for a while now, so duck and cover because the hot takes will be hitting like a meteor shower, and then jump in the comments and let me know what you think.

More as this develops, obviously.

I ducked into a Tim Horton's — Canadian Dunkin' Donuts — the other day to grab a quick coffee and I was immediately struck by not one, not two, but three people wearing Apple's AirPods. Two of them had in only a single AirPod. The third was rocking both. I'm not talking about downtown SF or NYC here. I'm talking about the suburbs of Montreal. And, increasingly, everywhere.

See AirPods at Amazon

Jon Wilde, writing for GQ:

I like this bit a lot as well:

Apple throws around words like "magical" and catchphrases like "it just works" a lot, and they're sometimes as awkward as they are awesome. But, in the case of AirPods, they're justified.

Yes, they're still only one size and one color and that can't possibly suit everyone, but now Apple's already moving on to their second generation product while most other manufacturers are still struggling to catch the first.

Check out the whole article and let me know what you think about the ascent of AirPods.

WIRED25, which celebrates 25 years of Wired Magazine, was a big enough deal to draw the notoriously shy and increasingly reclusive Jony Ive, Chief Design Officer at Apple, up on to the stage for a one-on-one interview with Vogue's Anna Wintour.

From Wired:

Video embed, if it works for you:

Ive's projects may change, evolve, and iterate over the years, from iPhones to iPads to Watches to Macs to Apple Retail to Apple Park, but rumors of his checking out have always been on the under-informed side.

He's the most impactful and arguable the best industrial designer of his generation and, at Apple, he gets to not only envision the future but envision his future.

And there aren't many gigs with that much freedom and scope.

Mark Gurman, writing for Bloomberg:

John Gruber, writing for Daring Fireball:

In news in so far as Apple's official reporting structure changed to allow Ive the time to focus on Apple Park while Alan Dye and Richard Howarth handled Human Interface (HI) and Industrial Design (ID) handled day-to-day management of their respective departments. And now it's changed back.

Other than that, I'd be surprised if most people inside Apple saw this as news at all. Other than Ive being busy with Apple Park, he was still part of reviews and presentations and still had a hand — and eye — on many of the features that have shipped over the last couple of years.

I should note, a lot of re-blogs of this news took the opportunity to bring up things like the Smart Battery Case, Apple Pencil's ability to charge from iPad Pro, and other recent design decisions that they claimed showed something was wrong with Apple in the interim.

That's adorable. The same people who complain Apple often puts form over function, when faced with decisions that emphasize function over form, find it utterly bewildering.

Just ask a pro — someone, anyone, who uses the products day in, day out. Who gets great battery efficiency without sacrificing signal quality or who can top up at a coffee shop or meeting and keep working whenever they need to.

Meanwhile, congrats to everyone involved on shipping Apple Park.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Yet another glowing neon sign pointing out how fallacious the whole "Jony Ive has checked out" narrative really was.

This is an incredibly odd paragraph, almost as though someone, somewhere, forced some "fair and balanced" negativity into the profile, and so the laziest list imaginable was added — perhaps as a way of pointing out just how silly its inclusion was.

iPhone sales growth has stalled because a) Apple is running out of people to buy iPhones and b) there are not yet Apple Stores on Mars. Apple has had breakthrough products since iPhone, they simply didn't sell as many units as iPhone — because nothing else in the industry has even sold as many units as the iPhone.

Likewise, Apple "lagged" behind other tech giants with phones and tablets, and that seems to have worked out fine for them. Moreover, HomePod is a speaker with Siri control. Amazon didn't introduce a speaker three years ago. At least not a good one.

As apt an illumination of Ive as I've ever read.

Perfect.

That would have been hilarious.

This is true. It's also true that some employees will still be getting offices. Including a whole separate building of them. (One where some of my favorite work at Apple gets done.)

No, Apple didn't forget the iPhone team.

That lack of last minute decision making can probably be applied to far more Apple products than rumors would have us believe.

Gorgeous work by the Wall Street Journal. Read the words, delight at the images.

I can't wait for it to ship.

A new interview with Apple design chief Jony Ive has shed more light on his role in designing Apple's new campus, Apple Park. Ive and Apple CEO Tim Cook talked about how Apple Park's design facilitates more interaction between employees, making face-to-face communication easier and even encouraging casual meetings in using the design of the hallways.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Ive also spoke about the environmental impact of Apple Park on the surrounding area, dismissing the idea that Apple's new campus is contributing to a Bay Area tree shortage:

The Wall Street Journal notes that Ive and his team will begin occupying Apple Park this fall, as some of the last Apple employees to move into the new facility.

Apple is a singular company. None other have achieved their success. They make even more money than those who have oligopoly control over rare fossil fuel resources. They also know how to keep secrets. That makes them mysterious, surprising, and frustrating. Add to that the persona of Steve Jobs — and of Jony Ive, and it's compelling. Everyone wants to know more about it. And books are one of the best ways to learn.

I've read all of them over the years. Some in hardcover. Some in paperback. Some in the Kindle or iBooks apps. Many as audio books. A few I've read several times over. These are the books about Apple, Steve Jobs, and Jony Ive that have stood the test of time.

Steve Jobs

Walter Isaacson's official biography of Steve Jobs… isn't great. But it is official. The problem with the book is that for all his access Isaacson seemed unable to focus on what moments made Jobs interesting, and so there's much ado here about nothing. That said, if you have the time and you're capable of filtering through all the noise, there's some information between these covers you just can't find anyone else.

In other words, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson isn't good but it's important.

• See on Amazon
• See on iBooks

Becoming Steve Jobs

While it lacks the official access of Isaacson's biography, Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli's biography paints a far better picture of the man. It does that by focusing on the moments that transformed him from the first coming of Steve Jobs, who was fired by Apple, to the second coming of Steve Jobs, who saved Apple. Whether you ultimately agree with them about the transformation matters less than the more balance, dynamic story they manage to tell.

If only these authors were given the access Isaacson squandered.

• See on Amazon
• See on iBooks

Revolution in the Valley

Andy Hertzfeld was on the team that created the original Mac, and that put him right in the middle the transition from command line to graphical user interface, the controversy that led to the firing of Steve Jobs, and the competition that eventually led Microsoft and Intel to own the PC industry. Based on the accounts originally shared on folklore.org, it might be told from Hertzfeld and the Mac's point of view, but that's precisely what makes it so great.

• See on Amazon
• See on iBooks

Insanely Great

Rather than focus on Steve Jobs specifically, Insanely Great focus on the computer that changed everything for Apple: the Mac. Steven Levy, a legend of tech reporting, the use of a product as a lens for such a product-focused company works, as the title suggests, insanely great. And while we might be headed into the post-PC era, it's the PC — in this case the Mac — that laid all that foundation. For iPhone and for Apple.

• See on Amazon
• See on iBooks

Insanely Simple

Ken Segall was Apple's longtime ad-man. He worked with Steve Jobs on countless campaigns over the years, including the legendary "Think Different". Filled with anecdotes from those formative years, Segall gives a lot of insight into the Apple that was, even if the Apple that is has evolved a lot since then.

If you're interested in the marketing that made iMac and iPod great, Insanely Simple covers it.

• See on Amazon
• See on iBooks

Inside Apple

For as much attention as Apple gets, much of its inner workings remain shrouded in mystery. It's a safe assumption that those who talk don't typically know, and those that know don't typically talk. All that said, Adam Lashinsky's Inside Apple sheds at least a little light on what makes Apple Apple.

Apple's organizational structure and practices are a moving target, but this gives you a glance at how they worked. At least as of a few years ago.

• See on Amazon
• See on iBooks

Designed by Apple in California

This tome isn't for everyone. It's big — and bigger! — and it's incredibly expensive. It also contains few words and nothing in the way of story. What it does include, though, are photos of Apple's most important products collaborated on by Steve Jobs and Jony Ive, including behind-the-scenes looks at prototypes and tools.

Many people won't like this book. Some won't like that it exists. Others, especially those obsessed with design and product, will find it invaluable.

See at Apple

Jony Ive

Jony Ive leads the team responsible for the now-iconic designs of iMac, MacBook, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. He's won more awards than most other companies combined. He's got a singular vision for simplicity and inevitability. And he's incredibly private. That makes it impossible to tell just how accurate Leander Kahaney's book on Ive really is but it also makes its existence incredibly valuable.

If you're interested in Jony Ive, this book is the closest you'll get to him.

• See on Amazon
• Son in iBooks

Design Crazy

While short, Design Crazy by Fast Company writer Max Chafkin and his team of reporters contains a plethora of interviews with former Apple employees and people "familiar with matters". It borders on the sensational at times but also contains a lot of stories that help highlight the thinking and effort that went into Apple's design-centric culture.

• See on Amazon
• See on iBooks

Your favorite books about Apple?

These are my favorite books about Apple, the ones I've gotten the most from over the years. If you've read them, or have others that I missed, let me know!

Last week on The Talk Show, John Gruber and Jason Snell were discussing the new Designed by Apple in California book when the subject turned to Jony Ive. Off the cuff, Gruber said:

John (disclaimer, he's a friend of mine) clarified his remarks on Daring Fireball, but the rumors were already running rampant. It's what happens in the tech world. Ask Marco Arment. Or Rene Ritchie.

But back to Jony Ive.

Jony Ive is not Apple design

Have you ever been inside Apple's design lab? Ever seen the design team? Probably not. There are a lot of folks on the design team. There are a lot of folks who work for people on the design team, and even more folks who work for the people that work for the people on the design team. See where I'm going? Jony Ive is a brilliant person that I've had the privilege to interact with during my time at Apple. He's awesome, both as the designer we know, and as a person to talk to. But he's not Apple design.

One of the things Apple has prized itself on, driven by the late Steve Jobs, is the idea of surprise and delight. Part of the allure is the allure. That's why Apple keynotes were so masterfully crafted.

It takes more than two people to make a great design

If you ever sat in on a keynote when Steve was still alive, you probably felt, as I did, that he had been working all night in his garage on some amazing device or piece of software, only finishing in the darkness of the early morning, and then immediately drove up to Moscone in San Francisco in his Mercedes SL to share it with you. Just you.

Likewise, there was a Jony Ive video where he would tell us just how special the design was of whatever the thing was that we all wanted. That was pretty much it. Even senior execs like Phil Schiller were relegated to serving as Ed McMahon to Steve's Johny Carson. It was a two man show, and that worked well for a very long time. Now, it's working against Apple.

If Jony Ive has plans to spend the rest of his career designing Christmas trees with no ornaments, it doesn't really matter. There is a lot more to Apple than Mr. Ive. There is a lot more to Apple than even Steve Jobs.

Will Sir Ive take a step back? Was the Apple book truly a final celebration of his work? Seriously ... Who cares?

The legacy is everyone

There's so much more to Apple than any one person. So much more than any one designer. The legacy of Steve Jobs, perhaps the eventual legacy of Jony Ive, is about the teams and people they have put in place. They are the unsung multitudes that have always been a crucial part of Apple's success.

One day, be it soon or in the far flung future, we'll hear the last of Jony Ive's tales of how an Apple product came to be. Either way, the work will keep going on.

Bob Messerschmidt's company was acquired by Apple and Messerschmidt ended up working on the heart rate sensor for the Apple Watch. That involved interacting with Jony Ive and the Industrial Design team, and learning how Apple builds products.

Fast Company:

Apple thinks about feature sets, not chipsets. That's a subtle but fundamental difference when it comes to their products. If you take a piece of technology and try to figure out what to do with it, the product always feels like an afterthought. If you take the product and figure out what technology you need to realize it, then the product feels realized.

(Arguably, Apple Watch struggled with that in the first generation.) In a perfect world, every product, Apple and otherwise, would have an executive ruthlessly cutting for its realization.

Messerschmidt also shares some thoughts on aspects he didn't like as much — including secrecy. Well worth a read.

Following the Apple sponsored Met Gala last night, Apple design chief Jony Ive sat down to discuss the Gala, the intersection of fashion and technology, and more.

As part of an interview with Business of Fashion (via 9to5Mac), Ive spoke of the calm that he experienced while walking through the "Manus x Machina" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ive then went on to discuss Apple's product design, noting the company's particularly personal approach to each of its offerings.

As for the Apple Watch, which is seen as Apple's first concerted foray into the world of fashion, Ive was mum on specifics concerning its future. However, the designer did compare the Watch to the original iPhone, hinting that it may see similar rapid iteration in future versions.

Ive, who delivered opening remarks at the Met Gala as well, was also joined at the event by Apple CEO Tim Cook and Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Charlie Rose has published a new interview with Apple's Jony Ive, which goes in depth on topics of Apple's identity, and design's role in that identity. Ive spoke about Apple's values, and reiterating a point he's made before, said that Apple's first goal isn't making money, but to make the best products they can, counting on that to attract customers. He also talked about his personal relationship with late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs.

Ive discussed his first meeting with Jobs, and how that led to the start of the iMac. From Charlie Rose:

Ive also touched on how he hopes customers experience Apple's products.

You can watch the episode of Charlie Rose in which the interview aired below. The Jony Ive interview starts around the 15:45 mark.

Vanity Fair has announced its speakers for its 2015 New Establishment Summit, revealing that Apple design guru Jony Ive will once again be taking part. Also set to speak at the summit is Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine, who now calls Apple home.

This isn't Ive's first appearance at Vanity Fair's annual summit; The design chief also spoke at last year's event, and touched upon a wide range of topics over the course of the 25-minute interview. In his previous appearance, Ive spoke about product design in general, along with that of the Apple Watch, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Jimmy Iovine will also be on tap, and will likely discuss his role behind the launch of Apple Music, along with the wide array of Beats products produced under his leadership.

The Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit will run from October 5 to October 7, and will also feature speakers from other big names in tech, such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Snapchat's Evan Spiegel.

Source: Vanity Fair

Jony Ive, the man who helped reignite Apple with the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad had more operational power than the finance group, the engineering group, the services group, even the operations group. Apple, the company that put design first, put design first.

For years Ive ran industrial design (ID) at Apple. When Tim Cook became CEO in the fall of 2011, he added human interface (HI) to Ive's responsibilities. The goal was to remove silos and increase collaboration. Ive, who'd long had Richard Howarth as a lieutenant for ID, brought Alan Dye over from marketing to run lead on HI. The immediate result, launched in the summer of 2012, was the redesign of iOS 7, and the "designed together" motif for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c.

OS X Yosemite followed, and the new MacBook. But it was the Apple Watch, a product driven by Ive and longtime friend Marc Newson and introduced in the fall of 2014, that showed the full power of Apple's new, unified design organization.

A couple of interesting events framed the Apple Watch launch: Marc Newson was officially brought on board by Apple, and Ive did extensive media appearances, foremost among them a profile in the New Yorker under the banner "The Future of Apple. The first gave Ive a collaborator again, the second gave him position.

Or rather, it started to get us ready for Ive's evolving position.

Few consumer product companies have a senior vice president of design. Fewer still have a chief design officer. At Apple, only Cook himself and chief financial officer Luca Maestri had C-level titles. Ive becomes the third, with Howarth taking on the day-to-day responsibilities of vice president of industrial design and Dye, vice president of user interface design.

That's to free up time for travel and working on other projects like Apple's Campus 2, and the next phase of Apple Retail.

That the change was announced on Memorial Day in the U.S., when the markets were closed, might reflect its gravity. Or it might simply recognize that markets, like people, are averse to change, and that it's worth pausing a reflecting, and realizing that this change, like the last one, won't play out in days or weeks but in months and years.

Ive appears to have avoided the traps that typically plague highly successful creatives. He doesn't seem to feel like there are no worlds left to conquer, and so isn't retiring or retreating from the world. He also doesn't seem to feel like his ideas are unassailable, and so isn't forcing the production of sequels (or prequels) that are pale shadows of their originals.

Apple's culture likely insulates against those extremes. Ive is used to working with a team in ID, and needed to work with one in HI. And it's no coincidence that Apple's current and future projects, including the new campus and new stores, and the Watch and Titan, are ones Ive seems to care about deeply.

This new position, freed of its day-to-day managerial duties, keeps Ive where he is — at the head of the most successful design company in history, with all but unmatched operational power. And it positions Apple for where the company needs to be — with a foundation and future below and beyond Ive as well.

An interview with Stephen Fry has revealed that design guru Jony Ive has been promoted to Chief Design Officer at Apple. Joining Ive in his promotion are Richard Howarth and Alan Dye, who are now the heads of Industrial Design (ID) and Human Interface (HI), respectively. From The Telegraph:

In the interview, Ive says that his new position will free him from administrative and management work, allowing him to travel more and, ostensibly, focus his complete efforts on design. Ive has great faith in Howarth and Dye in their new roles:

Ive originally joined Apple in 1992 and was promoted to Senior Vice President and head of the industrial design team after Steve Jobs returned to the company. Since then, he has been responsible for leading the way in the iconic designs seen in all of Apple's products, including the iPod, iPhone, Mac, and the iPad. It's quite the legacy, and it will be interesting to see what kinds of designs Ive's new role will free him up to pursue.

Update: 9to5Mac managed to obtain a copy of the memo that was sent out by Tim Cook to Apple employees highlighting the changes:

Team,

I have exciting news to share with you today. I am happy to announce that Jony Ive is being promoted to the newly created position of Chief Design Officer at Apple.

Jony is one of the most talented and accomplished designers of his generation, with an astonishing 5000 design and utility patents to his name. His new role is a reflection of the scope of work he has been doing at Apple for some time. Jony's design responsibilities have expanded from hardware and, more recently, software UI to the look and feel of Apple retail stores, our new campus in Cupertino, product packaging and many other parts of our company.

Design is one of the most important ways we communicate with our customers, and our reputation for world-class design differentiates Apple from every other company in the world. As Chief Design Officer, Jony will remain responsible for all of our design, focusing entirely on current design projects, new ideas and future initiatives. On July 1, he will hand off his day-to-day managerial responsibilities of ID and UI to Richard Howarth, our new vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, our new vice president of User Interface Design.

Richard, Alan and Jony have been working together as colleagues and friends for many years. Richard has been a member of the Design team for two decades, and in that time he has been a key contributor to the design of each generation of iPhone, Mac, and practically every other Apple product. Alan started at Apple nine years ago on the Marcom team, and helped Jony build the UI team which collaborated with ID, Software Engineering and countless other groups on groundbreaking projects like iOS 7, iOS 8 and Apple Watch.

Please join me in congratulating these three exceptionally talented designers on their new roles at Apple.

Tim

Ive and Newson will appear at the opening of the conference in conversation with the event's host, Suzy Menkes, international editor of Vogue, a Condé Nast magazine. The pair will discuss their work together, as well as what defines luxury in the 21st century, according to Vogue:

Ive and Newson are long-time friends, who previously worked together on the Product (RED) Mac Pro. Newson joined Apple in September 2014, though he is still able to pursue projects outside of the company.

The Condé Nast International Luxury Conference will take place in April.

Source: Vogue

Jony Ive is the subject of an unprecedented profile by Ian Parker that delves into Ive's history with Apple, the design process for the iPhone 6, Apple Watch, and much more. Ive himself was interviewed numerous times, and it includes comments from Apple CEO Tim Cook, executives Jeff Williams and Bob Mansfield, peers in the design community, members of Apple's design team, and Laurene Powell Jobs. From The New Yorker:

The profile also reveals that Ive is apparently working with Apple's SVP of Retail, Angela Ahrendts, on a redesign of Apple Retail Stores that will make room for the upcoming Apple Watch:

The article talks about the relationship between Ive and the late Steve Jobs, including the first meeting between the two:

You can read the full profile in The New Yorker at the link below.

Source: The New Yorker

Apple's senior vice president of design Jony Ive did not mince words about the competition at today's Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit. When he sees designs from Apple in the products of other companies he isn't very flattered.

The official Twitter account for Vanity Fair tweeted some choice quotes from Jony Ive. Here are some of our favorites:

Hit up the Vanity Fair Twitter stream to see some more. There should be video shortly posted online of Jony Ive. We'll share it when it does go live.

Source: @VanityFair

Jony Ive and Marc Newson's charity auction for (RED), the AIDS charity, has raised nearly $13 million. Forty-three items were auctioned, including several designed in a collaboration between Apple senior vice president of Design Jony Ive and renowned industrial designer Marc Newson.

The dozens of products weren't only designed by Ive and Newson. They included designer pens, suitcases, a car, an SUV and much more. But Ive and Newson's designs fetched some of the highest prices - a pair of solid rose gold Apple earpods, for example, were expected to fetch $25,000, but were sold for $461,000. Ive and Newson's aluminum "The (RED) Desk" was anticipated to sell for a half million dollars; it went for $1.685 million. A Steinway grand piano customized by Ive and Newson was estimated at $200,000, but it sold for $1.925 million. A Leica digital camera was expected to fetch $750,000; it sold for $1.805 million. A new Mac Pro, customized with a red aluminum exterior, fetched $977,000.

Ive and Newson were recently interviewed by talk show host Charlie Rose on PBS.

We've been hearing about Jony Ive taking a sand blaster to iOS 7 -- removing a lot of the heavier textures, gradients, shadows, and skeuomorphs that built up at Apple under Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall. According to what I've been hearing), iOS 7 will make fans of the richer design style cry. 9to5Mac's ace reporter, Mark Gurman, calls it Windows Phone-like, and what's more:

Gurman also says that iOS 7 is code-named Innsbruck, and includes a full set of newly redesigned icons for the built-in Apple apps. As that suggests, and as I've heard as well, the base Springboard launcher and its grid aren't going anywhere any time soon, so those hoping for an entirely new Home screen experience will be disappointed. That's not to say there won't be, as Gurman alludes to in his post, that Apple won't introduce new or modified sliding panels like Notification Center to add to or enhance functionality, but when you hit Home, currently, you still see Home. That's important for the hundreds of millions of existing iOS users.

What it means for developers and designers, however, will depend on how they've built their apps to date. Those who have stuck to UIKit will get a lot of the new look, including all the new stock interface elements, "for free". Those who have replicated UIKit elements in order to change them more substantially will have to re-replicate them. Those who have completely customized their interfaces, and who want to fit the new aesthetic, will have a lot of graphics to redraw come WWDC.

Ironically, Windows Phone and Android went flat to overcome performance issues. Compositing, masking, and shadow effects takes cycles. Flat interface can be thrown around much faster. Yet, because they've done it more recently, and because it stands in stark contrast to the more elaborate 2007-esque iOS interface, it looks "new". Their constraints brought out a cleanness and modernness that became fashionable, and as a result made Apple look decidedly unfashionable.

It'd be tempting to call the move reactionary -- a new look by new management to deal with new tastes in the market -- but for that new management being headed by Jony Ive. Apple's senior vice president of design has tastes that are well known, minimalist and timeless. He values getting everything, every distraction, out of the way until only the essential nature of the object remains. Now we're seeing that vision, Ive's vision, in charge of software for the first time. That it's such a stark contrast, and likely a welcome change for many from the status quo, could simply be a bonus.

Check out Gurman's article for more on iOS 7's new look, and then come back here and let me know what you think. If Apple goes flat, should they go very flat?

Source: 9to5Mac

MG Siegler instigated an interesting conversation on Branch today when he wondered out loud about Apple's plans for 2013. I've already posted several pieces on iMore about the potential for an April event, a potential summer release for the iPhone 5s, some stuff on the iWatch, bigger iPhone, and less expensive iPhone, and a bit about Jony Ive going hands-on with iOS 7. John Gruber added the following, which he's since posted on Daring Fireball as well:

Clayton Morris concurred:

Scott Forstall, previously in charge of iOS, left late last year. Jony Ive, previously in charge of hardware design was put in charge of all design, including software, at the same time. That's a massive change to the team working on iOS 7. In addition, Richard Williamson, who previously ran Maps, left, as did several other iOS engineers (retention really is a problem.) Siegler added to the Branch that the Passbook team specifically is suffering at the moment.

Here's something I contributed to the Branch but I can't stress enough:

So, if Forstall and other departures, and Ive and other additions, cause a change, either features can be dropped to make the same schedule, or the schedule has to be extended to allow for those features to be completed, or extra engineers have to be added to try and get the same schedule for the same features. Given the competitive landscape, and given that Apple has pulled engineering resources to iOS to help meet deadlines in the past, it's not hard to believe they need to, and are, doing just that again.

I haven't heard anything about the authentication hardware Siegler mentions, but I have heard some of the other things Gruber said. My only other addition to the Branch:

Transitions or no transitions, it sounds like there's some real work going on for iOS 7. I hope a lot of it makes it in. I also hope online services get the attention they need, because that's the table-stakes now.

Go read the whole conversation and let me know what you think.

Source: Branch

Late last year Tim Cook reorganized Apple's leadership, placing Jony Ive in charge of not only hardware design, but all design across the company. This, of course, included iOS 7 and future versions of all of Apple's software products as well. Today, the Wall Street Journal's Jessica E. Lessin reports that Ive is, in fact, doing just that.

We've been told similar, and some folks there seem downright ecstatic that Ive is bringing his sensibilities to iOS and Apple's apps. But again, that's his job now.

It's important to remember, however, that iOS 7 has been in development a lot longer than Ive has been in charge of software interface, and regardless of what changes he may or may not want to make, there'll likely be a hard cut-off for what can be implemented by this year's release, and what will be left on the road map for 2014 and later.

While some may be hoping Ive takes a sand-blaster to iOS interface, especially the more heavily textured apps like Find My Friends and Game Center, and others may hope he leaves every skin and skeuomorph right where it is, based on past his statements, Ive will probably skew towards design that's functional.

Today's Podcast app update, which removed the animated reel-to-reel eye-candy and stylized button treatment for something more functional, if less charming, is being looked at as a harbinger of what might be next for iOS as well. Or it could just have been a darling killed in service of an overall better, faster to use app.

Ive's hardware designs have always been minimal, but never non-existant. I don't think we'll be seeing an all aluminium iOS theme (mockup, above), or any change simply for change's sake. If nothing else, like Apple, Ive doesn't want to make different products, he wants to make better ones. That's what I expect with iOS 7, and iOS 8 after it.

But yeah, Ive's all in and engaged. Did anyone really doubt that?

Source: Wall Street Journal

Now that Apple has announced that senior-vice-president of iOS, Scott Forstall was leaving the company, amid storms and market-closings, various additional information is surfacing on the story, at least from Apple's perspective. Namely, it's now being claimed that Forstall was fired.

First up, Mark Gurman from 9to5Mac got his hands on the memo Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, sent to employees following the news, which unlike the press release, takes the time to thank Forstall.

However, Adam Lashinsky from Fortune is being told that things weren't so happy behind Apple's famously closed doors.

Lashinsky also says Forstall refused to sign the iOS 6 Maps apology letter, something echoed by Nick Wingfield of the New York Times:

Chris Ziegler of The Verge has heard likewise.

Om Malik of GigaOm claims Forstall's departure wasn't planned long in advance, and that reaction inside Apple has been largely positive.

Again, all this reads like Apple's perspective on the matter. Jessica E. Lessin of The Wall Street Journal also repeats the maps and apology letter story, but then offers some perspective from whats seems like Forstall's perspective. First, that he believed Apple could handle maps without apologizing, but also:

If there was indeed a power struggle or a contention as to who would guide Apple's products going forward, however, it seems inarguable that Forstall lost. It also seems like Apple was willing to make hard decisions and to sacrifice even extremely talented, long tenured individuals for what they felt was the good of the company moving forward.

If it came down to a choice between Jony Ive (and Bob Mansfield) and Scott Forstall, or of Tim Cook's leadership and Scott Forstall's ambitions, it's tough to argue the call. It's not so tough to see the faith and trust being put into Jony Ive and his design sensibilities, which have so far been manifested more in hardware than software, and Craig Federighi's engineering skills, which have only recently earned him the top spot in OS X, never mind iOS.

This is either an Apple -- and more specifically a Tim Cook -- as rightly confident in their ability to manage people as they are in their ability to project product, or an Apple already fraying at the seams about to experience another serious escalation in load and stress.

I'm very much hoping it's the former.

Source: 9to5Mac, Fortune, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Verge, GigaOm

Good design is inevitable. It's determined. It's relentless. Each iteration builds on the one before, becoming better and better each time. The work of Jonathan Ive, Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, is a near-perfect example of this. So is the iPhone 5.

Ive said as much in an interview with the Telegraph back in May:

You can not like the iPhone 5 design as a matter of personal taste. You can wish it were otherwise, or that Apple had chosen to go in a different direction. If you're "disappointed" in the iPhone 5 however, if you think it's too similar to previous iPhones, if you think Apple isn't innovating "any more", you're wrong. I'm not a "fanboy" and you're not a "troll" or a "hater". You're just wrong.

Back in 2005 Apple had a phone prototype called Purple. It was a flat, rounded rectangle with a big screen on the front and a metal plate on the back. It was, perhaps, their platonic ideal. Their form phone. And they couldn't make it. Not back then. They lacked the mobile engineering experience of an established player like Nokia, and they lacked the technologies and manufacturing processeses they themselves would later develop.

So Ive and Apple were forced to do what all great designers do. They were forced to compromise. And we got the original iPhone with its bloated sides and a big plastic band breaking its aluminium back. For the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, the metal back was removed completely, and plastic, bloated as the sides, took its place.

With the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, Ive and Apple were finally able to engineer their Purple phone. Flat. Solid. Stainless steel. But glass on the back and still not metal, and with an exposed antenna array that took a generation to get right.

Now we have the iPhone 5. Another step closer to Purple, the stainless steel sides are replaced by aluminium and the metal plate on the back has finally returned, albeit not completely. Another set of compromises demanded they keep radio-friendly glass on the top and bottom, and Apple's choice in a wider screen has forced them to abandon their golden ratio.

Jony Ive has many times said his goal is nothing less than making a better product. Phil Schiller said as much yesterday as well -- they started with the idea of an iPhone that was 20% or more thinner and lighter than an iPhone 4S without sacrificing any battery life, camera optics, or screen quality. And they did it while improving all of those things, and adding a faster radio as well.

Lost amongst the angst and howls of those for whom design is an appearance thing -- for whom ever more giant, creaky, plastic phones that are gray one year and blue the next, that are thin on one end and humped on the other, that sacrifice pixel quality for size, and consistency and cohesiveness for feature creep, are innovation -- is the leap forward Ive and Apple are taking here.

The leap from iPhone 4S to iPhone 5 is no less significant or impressive than the leap from the original MacBook Pro to the Unibody. In both cases, the end result bore familiarity of form, but was lightyears ahead in terms of process and results.

The iPhone 5 is an almost entirely new, entirely redesigned phone. Watch this video, particularly the part at the end about how the iPhone 5 is produced.

That Ive and Apple could do this and still make it look so similar is a testament to their talent and the integrity of their vision.

Jony Ive and Apple have made a better phone. It's profoundly thinner, lighter, and stronger, with a faster radio, better battery life and camera optics, and more screen than ever before.

They've made a better iPhone.

They had to. It was inevitable.

There were a couple of interesting comments on usability, interface, and experience today, one coming from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, who acknowledged they bet wrong on HTML5, and the other from unnamed sources who suggest Apple is deeply split along Scot Forstall vs Jonathan Ive lines when it comes to skeuomorphic vs more digitally authentic design.

Zuckerberg made his mea culpa on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, according to Drew Olanoff of TechCrunch he said:

HTML5, which is a catch-all term for the languages used to show content and enable interactivity on the modern web (including HTML markup, CSS stylings, and JavaScript programming), has many advantages. It's abstracted. It's updatable outside the software review process. It's widely known. It's robust. But it's still doesn't perform well enough to provide a great user experience. Native code combined with web-fed data has proven time and again to provide both great performance and great content. Apple learned this when they dumped widgets for built-in apps in iOS 1.0 in 2007, dumped web apps for the App Store in iOS 2.0 in 2008, and have been following that path ever since. It took Facebook until 2012.

Austin Carr at Fast Company, meanwhile, asks, "Will Apple’s Tacky Software-Design Philosophy Cause A Revolt?". He's referring to skeuomorphism, which means taking design or ornamentation from the real world and transposing it to the digital world in an attempt to make a more familiar, relatable, fancy, or fun interface. For example, making a reading app look and work like a real world book.

Despite the provocative headline, however, there are some problems with the core assumptions. For example, not all fancy, elaborate, even ostentatious designs are skeuomorphic or vice versa. Wrapping something in leather doesn't make it skeuomorphic, and making something skeuomorphic doesn't mean it has to involve radio knobs or needle pointers. Even if we restrict it to actual skeuomorphism, there's very little argument on either side of the issue. Does skeuomorphism add to the experience or take away? Add to the information density or or the noise? Does it lower user stress or increase it? Does it make the app more accessible or less accessible? More visually interesting or more distracting?

The question isn't whether skeuomorphism is good or bad, but is Apple currently using it effectively in iOS and OS X? In some cases, I think so. In others, I think they've missed the mark. But design is a process not a end point. It's looping iterations.

(Speaking of which, for really great takes on skeuomorphism from some of the people most directly involved and invested, check out the guests we've had on our Iterate podcast, especially de With, Mantia, Maheux, Brichter, Jardine, and Wiskus.)

Whatever your thoughts on HTML5 and skeumorphism, though, the most influential companies in the world caring deeply about usability, interface, and experience is an insanely great thing.

Jonathan Ive believes that Apple’s goal is not to make money but to make good products. Ive, who is Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, was speaking at the British Embassy's Creative Summit. According to Wired UK., Ive said:

Ive went on to explain his thoughts on design as prerequisite, the difficulties in achieving it, and how it takes discipline and focus to be a craftsman at Apple's levels of manufacturing volume.

Ive also talked about how the return of Steve Jobs to Apple in 1997 saved it from bankruptcy. Instead of focusing on ways to make money he focused on creating better products. Others who failed to turn Apple around prior to Job’s return were more intent on cutting operating costs and increasing revenue.

Ive closed the talk by confirming what we have previously heard when it comes to Apple and market research; it doesn’t do any. Ive believes that it would only guarantee mediocrity and only tell you if you are going to offend anyone. He believes that it is the designer’s responsibility to understand potential opportunities and create products that fit with those opportunities.

The whole interview is interesting and worth your time to read, so be sure to check it out via the link below.

Source: Wired UK

Jonathan Ive, known as Jony, is Apple's Senior Vice President of Design and the man responsible for turning Steve Jobs' iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad into real, physical objects with just exactly the right feel, in perfectly the right color. And when asked in a two-part interview with The Telegraph which Apple design he'd most liked to be remembered for, he says we haven't seen it yet.

Ive is in England to receive his knighthood for services to design and enterprise.

Born in Chingford, Essex in 1967 to a furniture and silverware maker who helped inspire Ive's attention to detail, after studying at Newcastle Polytechnic he ended up at Apple just prior to Steve Jobs' return, and became head of design at Apple shortly after Jobs' return. The rest, very literally, is history.

When asked about "focus" Ive re-interates a sentiment we've heard from him before, but should always be kept in mind in the months and weeks before Apple device launches.

Ive also repeats his belief that design shouldn't be obvious, that a designer should sweat and fret the details, figure out the complex problems, and present the end user only with the simplicity and elegance of the solution.

Interestingly, when asked about the visual complexity of skeuomorphism in software -- the stitched leather in Calendar specifically -- Ive claims his areas of responsibility are not connected to to those elements.

Both parts of the interview are worth a read.

Source: The Telegraph, x2