“As Jony Ive worked on early iPhone designs before and since its 2007 introduction, he regularly held meetings in his design studio to get input from top Apple Inc. executives — except one: Scott Forstall,” Peter Burrows and Adam Satariano report for Businessweek. “Even as Forstall oversaw the group responsible for the software that would run the iPhone, he didn’t participate in the meetings, according to people with knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity because the meetings were private. Ive and Forstall were rarely in the same room, the people said. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook made a choice between the two men this week, forcing out Forstall and leaving Ive in charge of the look and function of the software running everything from the iPod Touch to the top-of-the-line Mac. Ive will now be free to impart his minimalist aesthetic on familiar services such as the iPhone operating system while making commands more compatible from one product to the next. He will probably move away from using icons that look like real-world products, such as Post-It Notes and leather-bound contact books.”

Burrows and Satariano report, “Clashes between Forstall and other senior managers since Jobs’s death a year ago had made it harder for teams to work together, threatening Apple’s ability to keep producing the kinds of electronics that made it the most valuable company. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was able to keep the executives’ long-simmering tension under control. Cook made the final decision to revamp management after Forstall refused to sign a public apology for the mishandling of mapping software, people with knowledge of the matter said… Ive, 45, takes on the role Jobs held of setting Apple’s design vision, with responsibility for a group within Apple called Human Interface, which had been run by Forstall before he was pushed out.”

“Critics said [Forstall] was overly concerned with empire building and pushing through favored features while blocking other teams’ ideas,” Burrows and Satariano report. “British-born Ive is known for his deliberate, careful choice of words, and for crediting members of his team while minimizing his own role in development of products… Ive doesn’t have official control of all Apple’s software. Eddy Cue was given charge of the Siri digital-voice assistant and Apple’s mapping software, which has been beset by glitches. Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, will now be responsible for building and maintaining both MacOS and the iOS mobile software. Still, the HI team makes the software layer that governs how the products look and how customers actually use and manipulate the various programs.”

Read more in the full article here.

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