Ive replacement Jeff Williams 'more visible' in product creation than CEO Cook
COO Jeff Williams -- who's taking over for exiting design chief Jony Ive -- is typically "more visible" in product development than CEO Tim Cook, a report said on Friday.
Williams has "shown interest in products' look and feel," said the Wall Street Journal, citing people who've previously worked with the executive. The sources claimed that it was Williams who helped push the Apple Watch towards cellular support and more health features.
Indeed Apple's bio page now says that he "led the development of Apple Watch in close collaboration with the design team, and oversees the engineering teams responsible for Apple Watch," where until late June it only mentioned that he "also oversees the development of Apple Watch."
One source argued however that Williams "sees where we are, not where we need to be in years to come," since his expertise is in operations rather than design.
Cook has sometimes been criticized for having less of a hands-on approach than his predecessor, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. That may be one reason for Ive's departure, due later in 2019. Cook has denied such allegations.
The decision to install Williams as Ive's effective replacement is due to Apple's difficulty of finding anyone outside of the executive team who can take the role with any real effectiveness, as Ive had to lead a team to conceptualize products then create them into physical products, followed by collaborating with software, hardware, and operations teams to get it produced.
"It would be almost impossible to find someone who can really replace Jony Ive, Technalysis analyst Bob O'Donnell advised. "What they're doing is saying 'let's reallocate how we think about this and put someone else overseeing a few young designers to give them leeway.' It's time for fresh blood. The last few iPhones have looked really similar."
Williams will oversee Evans Hankey, vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, vice president of Human Interface Design. Ive is starting a new firm called LoveFrom that will at least temporarily retain Apple as a client.
Williams has "shown interest in products' look and feel," said the Wall Street Journal, citing people who've previously worked with the executive. The sources claimed that it was Williams who helped push the Apple Watch towards cellular support and more health features.
Indeed Apple's bio page now says that he "led the development of Apple Watch in close collaboration with the design team, and oversees the engineering teams responsible for Apple Watch," where until late June it only mentioned that he "also oversees the development of Apple Watch."
One source argued however that Williams "sees where we are, not where we need to be in years to come," since his expertise is in operations rather than design.
Cook has sometimes been criticized for having less of a hands-on approach than his predecessor, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. That may be one reason for Ive's departure, due later in 2019. Cook has denied such allegations.
The decision to install Williams as Ive's effective replacement is due to Apple's difficulty of finding anyone outside of the executive team who can take the role with any real effectiveness, as Ive had to lead a team to conceptualize products then create them into physical products, followed by collaborating with software, hardware, and operations teams to get it produced.
"It would be almost impossible to find someone who can really replace Jony Ive, Technalysis analyst Bob O'Donnell advised. "What they're doing is saying 'let's reallocate how we think about this and put someone else overseeing a few young designers to give them leeway.' It's time for fresh blood. The last few iPhones have looked really similar."
Williams will oversee Evans Hankey, vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, vice president of Human Interface Design. Ive is starting a new firm called LoveFrom that will at least temporarily retain Apple as a client.
Comments
The next step forward (revolutionary) is likely battery innovation, it’s very limiting for product design.
Revolutions are few and far between.
I’d also love new battery chemistry discoveries, but some of what I’ve seen is pessimistic about this happening.
Either way I stopped reading at "says the Wall Street Journal".
Why are people repeating this?
Apple Watch, iPad, HomePod, AirPods mean anything to you?
Steve wasn’t always perfect in his predictions either, so let’s give him a chance. At least he and Craig admitted the trash can Mac Pro was a POS and gave us hope when they said they were going to redo it and get back into making displays.
If you have to micromanage your staff, why hire them in the first place?
That Wall Street Journal?
I totally don't agree with this thinking, but judging by comments here and other forums, this is apparently what some want in an Apple CEO.
It's been said that he's leaving because he's tired of working with consumer products and most likely this continued partnership with Apple will be for other things... leaving product design to his current team.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_battery
Apple needs a bit of a reset from their likely Ives' propagated fixation on thin, light, minimalist designs and needs to pay some attention to functionality and pragmatiism....
The limitations in the Mac line are examples of a great ideas that got carried too far:
-- Ask a 'normal' person to walk into an Apple store and ask them to identify which are MacBooks, MacBook Airs or MacBook Pros. They can't because they are all just variations off of the same form-factor design.
-- Apple's welcome departure from sleek design to the industrial themed, modularity of the new MacPro
-- Apple's rumored abandonment of the much hated Butterfly keyboard.
I think that a taste of pragmatism to weed out some of the holes and problems created by blind, unwavering adherence to a limited design ideology may open things up at Apple. Both are necessary to create great products.
The best management I worked with were willing and able to become intimately involved in projects -- enough to get down and get their hands dirty when needed -- but were equally capable of stepping back and letting the employee fly when that was needed.
And, the best employees were quite comfortable in either mode. They had the confidence and self-assurance to tolerate ideas, suggestions, oversight and out right orders as well as work on their own.
A lot of it, very simply, depends on the person. It's why Steve looked for "A" level employees for important projects and said (correctly) that "A" level people don't like to work with "B" or "C" level people.
Tim Cook was part of that. So was Apple Park.
Tim clearly realizes that he is no Steve Jobs. So he offers HIS best and all of his unique talents to insure the future success of the organization that they both loved.
You need a designer to direct designers.
Now ehats going to jappen is a power struggle amongst the design team to do something different, not better, in order to get noticed.
People who who complain about iPhones looking similar... take a look at Lamborghini, Ferrari, or Porsche. Great design that knows it’s DNA for decades. Similar is not equal to same.
Ives desktop, portable, and mobile devices are top class. They are the best looking, best feeling, best functioning devices there are.
Unless Apple has secured a major portion of Ives time in His new venture, there will be trouble.
I tend yo believe the WSJ article a bit more now. Tim appointing an ops guy over design is like saying ops is more important and that design needs to report to ops. The problem with that is ops has no clue what to do with pushing boundaries. Ops is all about fitting things neatly into a box design is about escaping that box. Ops exists to make the design feasible. Not the other way around.
Until tim gets this, I’m a bit concerned. And Apple never concerns me.
You can replace many jobs: accountant, receptionist, supply chain manager, HR, etc. because those jobs are like putting legos together.
The He designers CREATE their own legos.
Having a lead designer who has proven aesthetic taste, industrial design knowledge, and an understanding of how to design functionally is key. But placing a spreadsheet guy in a design lead role is beyond ridiculous.
If tim not showing up hurt morale, then Ive Going away hurting it more, this move just killed it. I can’t imagine being on that team and your hero leaves, causing you to speculate which of your number gets promoted or who the new design lead will be ... only to have mr. Sneakers and spreadsheets come waking through your door.
This is an example of boardroom buddies thinking they can do it all.
I hope they learn fast. This could get rough in a hurry.