To help keep this factual, Mark Newson works with a lots of companies, hires does not mean an employee. More appropriately he was contracted or was an independent consultant. The company I work for currently has been working with Mark Newson for the last 9 yrs on various projects, so he could not be an Apple employee if he is also working with the company I work for. It is generally frown upon being an actual employee of one company and also doing work with other companies.
It is known Mark work with Apple on the Watch as well as the new campus. We can guess at his contribution on the watch, but the campus could be any number of things. Base on those two things, I suspect he gets a licensing fee for each watch sold and was mostly like paid for time spent on the campus work since you can not get a royalty on building.
“Amy Frearson: You've taken on quite a major role with Apple, do you think you'll still have time to work on these kinds of project as well?
Marc Newson: Yes absolutely, because my role at Apple doesn't necessitate all of my time and that was for very specific reasons, so absolutely, my company still exists and I remain based in the UK.”
He can absolutely have been a part time employee and worked on other projects, he said it himself. Either way, claiming he was never an employee is false unless Ive lied to Vanity Fair.
Cook has lied before. Continues to lie. There has been major exodus at apple of 20 + yr employees for various reasons, non related to Cook, and some because of. Cook's focus seems to be on APPLE FASHION... and not so much on anything else. So much great talent has left Apple, and it shows. Internally trying to consolodate teams, while externally producing a splintering confusion of "new" (polished turd) products and lines. So remember, you can now run out to your local Apple Store and buy a 20,000 dollar hermes watchband for your apple watch. WOW. In all seriousness, I hope Apple finds its way again. Sad.
Cook has lied before. Continues to lie. There has been major exodus at apple of 20 + yr employees for various reasons, non related to Cook, and some because of. Cook's focus seems to be on APPLE FASHION... and not so much on anything else. So much great talent has left Apple, and it shows. Internally trying to consolodate teams, while externally producing a splintering confusion of "new" (polished turd) products and lines. So remember, you can now run out to your local Apple Store and buy a 20,000 dollar hermes watchband for your apple watch. WOW. In all seriousness, I hope Apple finds its way again. Sad.
As the CEO TC had to respond and deny, or at least play it down, but I have to say I find the WSJ story entirely plausible. That is exactly how it happens when someone in a key role burns out. Maybe even JI would deny that he in fact burned out, but will come around to this fact (if it is so), further down the line. If it is he should probably have handed over the reins a long time ago but that is not an easy thing to do. I am sure there was a lot of pressure on his to stay. The WSJ suggests as much with all the special allowances made for JI by TC. To me it has felt like the design path forged by JI had run its course. He was all about beautiful minimalism and it must be tedious to keep slogging down the same road with the same products. It would be almost unthinkable that he would break the mold and add some corners and trinkets and bling just for the sake of changing up the looks. A new design team might do something like that. The current 'look and feel' of the Apple Watch, iPhone and iPads, macBooks and iMacs really carry the 'Designed by Jony' stamp. Perhaps in 5 years none of the will. Maybe the era of Apple 'bling' is due? I hope not but who knows?
When your design ethos is simplicity and minimalism, where do you evolve too? You literally run out. Not until we see major developments in glass, graphene, etc, that allows a new period of design, would JI have an interesting new sand box. I’m just disappointed that Apple hasn’t gone farther in this direction. Nothing has come of flirtations with Liquid Metal. Perhaps the costs are prohibitive, but that’s what you do with huge cash, you can afford to alter the paradigm. JI has run out of ways to package with glass and aluminum.
As the CEO TC had to respond and deny, or at least play it down, but I have to say I find the WSJ story entirely plausible. That is exactly how it happens when someone in a key role burns out. Maybe even JI would deny that he in fact burned out, but will come around to this fact (if it is so), further down the line. If it is he should probably have handed over the reins a long time ago but that is not an easy thing to do. I am sure there was a lot of pressure on his to stay. The WSJ suggests as much with all the special allowances made for JI by TC. To me it has felt like the design path forged by JI had run its course. He was all about beautiful minimalism and it must be tedious to keep slogging down the same road with the same products. It would be almost unthinkable that he would break the mold and add some corners and trinkets and bling just for the sake of changing up the looks. A new design team might do something like that. The current 'look and feel' of the Apple Watch, iPhone and iPads, macBooks and iMacs really carry the 'Designed by Jony' stamp. Perhaps in 5 years none of the will. Maybe the era of Apple 'bling' is due? I hope not but who knows?
When your design ethos is simplicity and minimalism, where do you evolve too? You literally run out. Not until we see major developments in glass, graphene, etc, that allows a new period of design, would JI have an interesting new sand box. I’m just disappointed that Apple hasn’t gone farther in this direction. Nothing has come of flirtations with Liquid Metal. Perhaps the costs are prohibitive, but that’s what you do with huge cash, you can afford to alter the paradigm. JI has run out of ways to package with glass and aluminum.
They have gone further in that direction. They've been developing their own alloys. They have patents with regard to fusing glass and ceramics. What makes you think there's something they can do with Liquid Metal that's practical in any way that they're refusing to do due to costs alone?
He slammed the reporter well for his bad sense of humour. Media can always dig some shit even if none exists. Steve would have been even direct and brutal in his response to such a concoction. It looks as if the reporter was trying to kill both birds with a single stone.
One could never accept SJ's appointment of Tim Cook, a Former Financial Executive at Apple, a grey suited lesser simian. Even when captured by a great colour photographer, Cook always looks like he's been masked and had a greyscale filter applied.
In contrast SJ rode every keynote as if it were a tsunami of joy. Year after year SJ slowly redistributed staff strengths and weakness to find Apple's centre of mass. Once finally done he had merely to ride the wave straight through all the naysayers who had spent the previous decade declaring Apple to be dead in the water. Not once at any Cook keynote has Tim ever reached the heights of serotonin intoxicated enthusiasm or the genuine reverence Job's so often lavished on each of the key team members and all Apple staff who gave Apple 100%. Maybe Jobs' Smoke and Mirror tricks were just what the doctor ordered.
How long will it take Cook and Apple hardware designers to rediscover beige plastic?
The WSJ talked to people and they said things. Not particularly flattering to Apple, but these things don't come outta nowhere. Certainly I would be a bit out of sorts if I had pressed my employer to make thousands of luxury gold watches that didn't get sold. It tends to invalidate your world view. The story totally let Ive off the hook though, repeatedly pointing to his desire to be with his aging father at home. I think it is pretty doggone humane of Apple to work with him on that score, even if the design of the latest phones suffered.
And completely ignore the fact Apple Watch sold millions and iPhone is the most successful product in tech history. The "reportedly" unsold Editions aren't factual. They had plenty of time to sell them all. I doubt Apple was mass producing them just like they won't be mass producing the Mac Pro in the millions.
The_Martini_Cat is absolutely right in what they said, and you are channeling the typical fanboy filled with blind loyalty... TMC is making references to the design and product directions that Jony was directly responsible for, and which proved to be failures — such as the insanely priced ‘Edition’ models of WATCH, the hiring of Angela Ahrendts, the non-upgradeable and too costly to produce 12” MacBook, the floundering iPhone designs, and finally the iPhone X series, which had resulted in 20% loss of premium sales, year over year, for the past 2 years. This is why Jony was asked to leave (ie, was fired).
... and yes, the story completely let Jony Ive off the hook, but ultimately there are other articles that are far more focused on how Ive’s decisions regarding products were driven by a petty desire to push ideas forward that Steve Jobs (for good reason) turned down and nixed.
The WSJ talked to people and they said things. Not particularly flattering to Apple, but these things don't come outta nowhere. Certainly I would be a bit out of sorts if I had pressed my employer to make thousands of luxury gold watches that didn't get sold. It tends to invalidate your world view. The story totally let Ive off the hook though, repeatedly pointing to his desire to be with his aging father at home. I think it is pretty doggone humane of Apple to work with him on that score, even if the design of the latest phones suffered.
And completely ignore the fact Apple Watch sold millions and iPhone is the most successful product in tech history. The "reportedly" unsold Editions aren't factual. They had plenty of time to sell them all. I doubt Apple was mass producing them just like they won't be mass producing the Mac Pro in the millions.
The_Martini_Cat is absolutely right in what they said, and you are channeling the typical fanboy filled with blind loyalty... TMC is making references to the design and product directions that Jony was directly responsible for, and which proved to be failures — such as the insanely priced ‘Edition’ models of WATCH, the hiring of Angela Ahrendts, the non-upgradeable and too costly to produce 12” MacBook, the floundering iPhone designs, and finally the iPhone X series, which had resulted in 20% loss of premium sales, year over year, for the past 2 years. This is why Jony was asked to leave (ie, was fired).
... and yes, the story completely let Jony Ive off the hook, but ultimately there are other articles that are far more focused on how Ive’s decisions regarding products were driven by a petty desire to push ideas forward that Steve Jobs (for good reason) turned down and nixed.
Glad Ive is gone.
Oh boy. There’s so much wrong here this almost reads as satire.
Comments
Anyway:
“Newson, who will continue to be based in the United Kingdom, will be an employee of Apple, and will be frequently traveling to the company’s Cupertino, California, headquarters.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/09/marc-newson-apple-jony-ive
“Amy Frearson: You've taken on quite a major role with Apple, do you think you'll still have time to work on these kinds of project as well?
Marc Newson: Yes absolutely, because my role at Apple doesn't necessitate all of my time and that was for very specific reasons, so absolutely, my company still exists and I remain based in the UK.”
https://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/01/marc-newson-interview-apple-watch-heineken-sub-draft-beer-machine/
He can absolutely have been a part time employee and worked on other projects, he said it himself. Either way, claiming he was never an employee is false unless Ive lied to Vanity Fair.