Apple has a unique working arrangement with the Vision Pro team

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in Apple Vision Pro

Apple is handling the team working on the Apple Vision Pro very differently to the rest of its business, with a dedicated division working on it rather than relying on the work of multiple separate departments.

Apple Vision Pro
Apple Vision Pro



Apple's development of products often uses a diverse range of employees across all of its departments working together on new hardware and features. While this is true of the iPhone, iPad, and other products, it's handling the Apple Vision Pro very differently.

In an outline of the Apple Vision Pro's development, Mark Gurman writes in the Bloomberg "Power On" newsletter about Apple's shift away from its earlier product development structure in the late 1990s in favor of a "functional" management structure, following the return of Steve Jobs.

This meant that, rather than having a dedicated department for specific products like iPhone or Mac, the departments were organized by job roles. Separate teams such as software engineering, hardware development, and others all contributed to new products across the entire catalog, not just one specific item.

For the Apple Vision Pro, it's seemingly a return to product-specific departments, in a way. Developed under the Mike Rockwell-run Technology Development Group from 2015, the team has since been renamed the Vision Products Group.

Instead of working with other teams more directly, the VPG instead operates as a mini version of Apple's managerial structure, with smaller versions of software, hardware engineering, and other teams within it. Other department teams, who all report to Rockwell, include strategy, computer vision, content, app development, and project management.

While VPG does keep most of its work within the group itself, it does still tap the larger out-of-group teams. This included working with design and operations teams, the chip unit for its processors, and frameworks from software engineering group teams.

Sticking together



After its announcement, members of VPG thought the team would be broken up and absorbed into the existing management structure, much like other Apple product families.

However, the name change for the group apparently indicates that won't happen for a while. The plural of "Projects" certainly puts forward the idea that multiple products will stem from it, such as future cheaper headset models.

Gurman reckons the move is because a smaller group can move more quickly to develop a product while maintaining secrecy. The use of a core team of specialists in a dedicated unit for a complex product may also be a necessity for Apple to successfully develop the product.

On a more mercenary level, Apple may also be trying to keep the VPG separate until it becomes a big enough category for it to perform the disbanding and absorption into other teams. Doing so too early could force the existing teams to provide more resources to the headsets, which could take away those same resources from its existing revenue-generating products.

Gurman does point out that this isn't Apple's first time that Apple has modified its management structure for new products. For the development of the Apple Watch, hardware and software teams working on the device were managed by COO Jeff Williams.

Meanwhile, a Special Projects Group still exists for the self-driving car's development. With that group also having dedicated staff in a similar manner to the VPG, it too could end up remaining a segmented-off section of Apple's empire after an eventual Apple Car launch.

Read on AppleInsider

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    SamhainSamhain Posts: 12member
    Don't forget the Macintosh team with their Jolly Roger flag, the privateers of the Apple campus :-)
    watto_cobrahammeroftruthlolliver
  • Reply 2 of 8
    eriamjheriamjh Posts: 1,763member
    Functional management is terrible for new product ideas, faster schedules, idea generation, and integration of new technologies.  

    A Vision product team is the way to go until the tech is more ubiquitous.   I approve of this arrangement for the time being.  

    It’s a very special product.   It’s needs a team that has a very specific focus on the end goal, not just assembling the pieces.  

    This isn’t an iPod they are designing.  It’s totally new technologies and ways of processing data via the multitude of inputs into a seamless experience.   It makes sense that the watch was designed this way.  People laughed, but look at it now.   Imagine the 9th generation of vision pro.   
    edited July 2023 bageljoeywatto_cobrabyronl
  • Reply 3 of 8
    michelb76michelb76 Posts: 698member
    Cool, now do this for every single product. Can't wait for macOS to get this treatment for once.
    byronl
  • Reply 4 of 8
    michelb76michelb76 Posts: 698member
    eriamjh said:
    Functional management is terrible for new product ideas, faster schedules, idea generation, and integration of new technologies.  

    A Vision product team is the way to go until the tech is more ubiquitous.   I approve of this arrangement for the time being.  

    It’s a very special product.   It’s needs a team that has a very specific focus on the end goal, not just assembling the pieces.  

    This isn’t an iPod they are designing.  It’s totally new technologies and ways of processing data via the multitude of inputs into a seamless experience.   It makes sense that the watch was designed this way.  People laughed, but look at it now.   Imagine the 9th generation of vision pro.   
    Imagine if the other products and systems were handled like that in past decade. Imagine where we could have been with MacOS, or iCloud.
    watto_cobrabyronl
  • Reply 5 of 8
    hammeroftruthhammeroftruth Posts: 1,354member
    michelb76 said:
    Cool, now do this for every single product. Can't wait for macOS to get this treatment for once.
    Blame Steve for pulling a lot of talent off the MacOS team and putting them on iphone. Never backfilled them. At least not in talent. 
    byronl
  • Reply 6 of 8
    Apple Vision needs to be handled differently because it's not just an extension of the mobile ecosystem (at least it shouldn't be) but rather it's a potential replacement for that ecosystem. A displacement product instead of an extension/evolution product. This is true in the same way that motion sensing, cameras and precise location are core elements of mobile that needed to be treated completely separately from desktop computing in the early days of mobile or we would have never created apps that went beyond what was ever possible on desktops. Apple Vision (aka "Spatial Computing") is something new that should be treated separately and THEN we determine how the two universes will interact. It's the only way to have the new ecosystem not be held back by the old.
    byronl
  • Reply 7 of 8
    michelb76michelb76 Posts: 698member
    michelb76 said:
    Cool, now do this for every single product. Can't wait for macOS to get this treatment for once.
    Blame Steve for pulling a lot of talent off the MacOS team and putting them on iphone. Never backfilled them. At least not in talent. 
    It's not just the capacity issue, but having teams actually talk to each other would massively improve some parts of MacOS.
    byronl
  • Reply 8 of 8
    byronlbyronl Posts: 377member
    michelb76 said:
    michelb76 said:
    Cool, now do this for every single product. Can't wait for macOS to get this treatment for once.
    Blame Steve for pulling a lot of talent off the MacOS team and putting them on iphone. Never backfilled them. At least not in talent. 
    It's not just the capacity issue, but having teams actually talk to each other would massively improve some parts of MacOS.
    can you give an example?
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