Bigger news here is that designers at Apple are now reporting to the Chief Operating Officer (which is highest ranking human resources title). Let that sink in.
The Chief Design Officer role has departed with Ive. If Tim Cook understood how creative people work, he would have kept the role and filled it in from within the company hopefully.
I agree with some of the statements made here from other posters that without Jobs, Ive doesn’t have a hyper critical sounding board. Perhaps that is what he misses too, having someone critique his work to make him work harder in his designs and not just give him kudos.
Marc Newson will do that for him at the new firm. Newson is his equal.
I actually think this is a good thing. While many of Ive's designs were brilliant in many respects, he always placed form over function. So we have the MBP in which the overwhelming design objective was thinness, but in doing so removed the ability to replace/upgrade battery, storage and memory. What we don't know is whether or not this was imposed upon Ive by marketing as a way to force people to buy new computers more often.
We have beautiful looking phones (although most competitive phones look just about as good), which look great in advertisements, but are so fragile that you have to place them in a case anyway, so you're never really seeing the phone as intended. I can't tell you the number of times when I've seen someone handling their phone without a case and thinking, "oh..that's a really nice looking phone" and then realizing that I had the exact same model (but mine was in a case). And while it's become less of a factor over time due to improvements in battery tech, it's ridiculous that an end-user can't replace the battery in an iPhone. Would you buy a car in which the car had to be returned to the dealer to replace the tires, headlights or battery?
I actually hope that Ive doesn't have all that much involvement with Apple once he launches his new firm. I think it's time for new blood and new ideas. I hope the people taking over design at Apple have radically different ideas from Ive's.
The description there is pushing for old ideas, not new ideas. The new Mac Pro is an example of an old idea and has a very narrow appeal.
Apple has been defined by changing the status quo, not adhering to it. The design direction that Apple goes in is one of refinement and endurance, not fashion. Their custom typeface isn't a stylistic choice in the same way Helvetica isn't. It's a refinement of a design in order to work in as many environments as possible. Apple has over a billion customers and their designs have to work for all of them, not just the tech crowd. Designing upgradability into a product for the 1% who will use it once every few years is an old idea.
People like Ive usually move on when they get bored. Once you refine an enduring design to its conclusion, there's nothing more to be done. Rehashing old ideas isn't appealing to anyone but the tech crowd. Apple itself is a refinement of a set of values and it needs stewardship from people who respect that and that's what they have.
New ideas will come from new challenges in different fields. There are challenges in lots of different fields: healthcare, housing, transport, food, entertainment. Someone like Ive who seems to be perpetually curious and experimental is better suited in a perpetual startup, a playground. Apple isn't a startup any more.
From what has been reported in the past, it seems like a part of Ive's motivation is to be close to his family and not having to commute to Apple. He put 30 years of work into making Apple what it is because he cared enough to do that. If he saw a need to be there, he'd have stayed. This will be noticeable to people with new iPhones, iPads and Macs, the designs won't be changing much at all going forward. When Ive is needed, Apple can get his input.
Comments
Apple has been defined by changing the status quo, not adhering to it. The design direction that Apple goes in is one of refinement and endurance, not fashion. Their custom typeface isn't a stylistic choice in the same way Helvetica isn't. It's a refinement of a design in order to work in as many environments as possible. Apple has over a billion customers and their designs have to work for all of them, not just the tech crowd. Designing upgradability into a product for the 1% who will use it once every few years is an old idea.
People like Ive usually move on when they get bored. Once you refine an enduring design to its conclusion, there's nothing more to be done. Rehashing old ideas isn't appealing to anyone but the tech crowd. Apple itself is a refinement of a set of values and it needs stewardship from people who respect that and that's what they have.
New ideas will come from new challenges in different fields. There are challenges in lots of different fields: healthcare, housing, transport, food, entertainment. Someone like Ive who seems to be perpetually curious and experimental is better suited in a perpetual startup, a playground. Apple isn't a startup any more.
From what has been reported in the past, it seems like a part of Ive's motivation is to be close to his family and not having to commute to Apple. He put 30 years of work into making Apple what it is because he cared enough to do that. If he saw a need to be there, he'd have stayed. This will be noticeable to people with new iPhones, iPads and Macs, the designs won't be changing much at all going forward. When Ive is needed, Apple can get his input.