Richard Waters and Shannon Bond for Financial Times:
Apple’s share price fell by just over 1 per cent in early trading in New York, trimming $9bn from its market value, as investors and analysts suggested Jony Ive’s departure was a natural transition for the company — and may be a chance for a shake-up.
“I’m sad to see Jony Ive go — it’s marking again the end of an unbelievable epoch,” said Dan Chung, chief executive and head of investments at Alger, a longtime Apple shareholder in New York.
But he added that the exit of Apple’s chief designer would make room for a new generation in the company’s internal design studio. “Giving an opportunity for talent to step up and shine might be better for the company.”
“The simple answer is that it doesn’t change a thing in part because he hasn’t been as involved in the last four years,” said Gene Munster, analyst at Loup Ventures.
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, what Gene said.
As we wrote this morning, everyone knew he’d stepped back, just as everyone knew he’d immersed himself in Apple Park. The fact that he’d already partially ceded responsibilities to Hankey and Dye bodes well for a smooth transition.
We congratulate Jony Ive on a job exceedingly well done for so many years and we look forward to where Hankey and Dye will lead Apple’s Industrial Design now!
Perhaps we need to go on step further and return Tim Cook to Compaq. He will not be soon forgiven for his Mac Pro transgressions and inattentiveness.
Tim Cook is a manager who is good at delegation, which anyone can see at the WWDC. He does not develop software, he does not design hardware, and he defers to the expertise of his subordinates. He doesn’t have the charisma of Steve Jobs, but then no one does. All this trashing of Tim Cook is imperceptive and misplaced.
Jony Ive had absolute authority and faced no job repercussions if he screwed up. He was obviously the only person who influenced his decision to resign. The butterfly keyboard disaster must have been excruciatingly embarrassing for him and it must have shown him that continuing as an absolute monarch of design would eventually damage his reputation. I bet that he will not request or be given sovereignty in his new job.
Agreed except Cook is not a good manager. Anyone who works with Apple knows that today the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Nothing at Apple is seamless and consistent anymore. But when they skim off easy money from the monopoly iOS app store, then all sins are easily covered up.
Case in point: it took less than two years for anyone with a brain to see that the Mac Pro Trashcan was a colossal screw up. It took Cook ~4.5 years to direct his VPs to do something about it, and a full 6 years before Apple showed anyone that the Mac Pro has a future. That is horrid leadership. Cook can’t even delegate effectively. Let’s not even start getting into the many other major product lines that Cook and his idiot lieutenants have let die on the vine.
You can’t blame Tim Cook and the VPs for not overriding Jony Ive when Steve Jobs took away their authority to do that. Tim Cook’s job is to conduct the orchestra, not to play the tuba. Jony Ive is the “tuba player” who designed the trash-can Mac Pro, it was Jony Ive’s mistake and he was the only person who could correct it.
So, why didn’t he? There’s got to be more to the MP debacle than ‘it’s all Jony’s fault’
You are blaming people for not doing what they couldn’t do. Steve Jobs made Jony Ive “untouchable.” He even said that he did it so no one could override Jony Ive’s decisions. If they can’t touch him, they can’t touch him, and if they can’t override him, they can’t override him.
Steve Jobs put Jony Ive into a position, where if he made a mistake, no one could correct it. Unfortunately, even a genius can make a mistake.
Jony Ive’s departure probably was influenced by Tim Cooks decision to make the new Mac Pro in China instead of America. He was angered beyond believe upon finally being convinced that Tim Cooks loyalty is towards the company’s shareholders and his bank account not towards 🇺🇸MAGA🇺🇸.
There’s no evidence about Jony Ive’s politics. Since Jony Ive lives in California, it’s unlikely he shares yours. His head is deep into design and I don’t think he has the mindshare to worry about where the stuff is made.
Jony Ive is not an American. He is a British citizen who was knighted by the queen, an honor an American citizens cannot legally accept. Why would a citizen of another country be concerned about MAGA? Jony Ive is an immigrant, so he might even see MAGA as a threat to him and his career.
As an owner of an iPhone XS Max, a DLC black SS Apple Watch 4, and AirPods, I’m quite satisfied that Apple’s design team is firing on all cylinders.
Apple Watch 4, in particular, is one of Apple’s best designs ever…
Jony Ive’s departure won’t have a short-term effect on products, but in the long term, it may mean the return of icons that look like what they stand for, an improved laptop keyboard, and an end to unnecessary laptop anorexia. The appearance of Apple products may suffer, but their usability and durability will improve.
Jony Ive is a design genius, but the problem is that he knows it. He had absolute authority, which means no one checked his work. He didn’t need to defer to internal advice or customer feedback—he may have done so, but my point is that there were no job repercussions if he didn’t.
The butterfly keyboard is a design disaster that cost Apple a lot of deferred laptop sales. Obviously the design went out the door THREE TIMES without durability testing. You’d think that a company like Apple would have had a machine simulating typing on the keyboard before they released it.
Jony Ive was in the same position as a writer without a proofreader. There’s no one to catch mistakes. Steve Jobs set it up so that no one had supervisory authority over him and no one could fire him—thus Jony Ive was the only person who was a factor in his resignation. He must have realized to lose his reputation as a designer if this continued, and that embarrassment was a major motivation for his resignation.
Maybe all Apple products will suddenly get thicker refreshes now that Jony Ive is gone. /s
As opposed to Ive’s iPod, manufactured in China from day one? Or the iPhone, manufactured in China from day one? Or perhaps every single Mac except the ill-fated Trashcan, made in China for at least 20 years?
Yeah, British citizen Jony Ive really gives a fsck that Cook has continued to push all Apple product manufacturing to China now.
At some point, you’re going to have to decide if your loyalty is to Apple or to Brainless Trump.
Who knows for sure if Johnny Ive designed the butterfly keyboard or not, if as reported he spent most of the last 4 years concentrating on the Apple Campus , then maybe it was the design team who designed it, if so this could be worrying.,,,🤔
Jony Ive had total control over design and over the design staff. If a subordinate had been able to sneak a bad design past him, which is hardly thinkable, the butterflies never would have gotten out of the net a second time. Jony would have fired the culprit, just like he fired the artists in the design team in the run-up to iOS 7 and Yosemite—no need for artists if the UI is going to geometric shapes.
Jony Ive was an autonomous employee under no one’s supervision. If there was a design triumph, it was his. If there was a design mistake, it was his.
Correction: Apple Park
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
_Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford University speech
Change can be good. very good – “it clears out the old to make way for the new.”
I’m 62 now. I don’t recall a day that I didn’t spend in front of a computer. Or behind, on top of, or even inside. I call this the last decade. Mostly because most people die in their 70s. Every day after 70 is a bonus day. Never had a wife or family or kids really. I didn’t consider myself qualified. Still don’t. Have a really good dog though. Every man should have a dog. I spent the better part of my life convincing people to switch to Mac. Now I’m kinda doing it with iPads. Jony Ive is 10 years younger than I am.
Use it wisely Jony.
Steve Jobs was wrong; at least he did not ask me. I have had a very hard life and I am looking forward to dying. Based on my family history, I have to tough it out for at least another 20 years. I don’t care what, if anything, comes next. I’m just tired.
As I read the comments about Jony Ive’s departure, I get the impression that a lot of people think that Jony Ive is an all-powerful infallible god incapable of sins or mistakes, but he was somehow also weak and inattentive enough to let evil beings sneak out bad designs right under his infallible nose. Not so.