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Apple Confirms Retirement of Senior Designer Greg Christie Later This Year

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Apple has confirmed the departure of Greg Christie, part of the original team behind the iPhone. His leaving the company was previously reported by 9to5Mac and was said to follow a falling out between Christie and Jony Ive, Apple's design chief.

The WSJ reports that Christie's "human interface" team will now report to Jonathan Ive, rather than the company's software head Craig Federighi.

In a statement given to the Financial Times, Apple says that Christie has been planning to retire later this year and is still within the company.
Greg has been planning to retire later this year after nearly 20 years at Apple. He has made vital contributions to Apple products across the board, and built a world-class Human Interface team which has worked closely with Jony for many years.
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Christie has worked with Apple since 1996 and was credited with the development of the "Slide to Unlock" feature of iPhones and iPads, though he is named as an inventor on hundreds of other patents.

New York Times reporter Brian X. Chen tweeted that Christie's retirement was announced within the company "weeks ago".
Was just told Apple VP Greg Christie s retirement was announced weeks ago. I don t know anything about Ive politics. - Brian X. Chen (@bxchen) April 9, 2014
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Apple's statement doesn't directly address the rumor that Greg Christie and Jony Ive had clashed over design direction, nor does the company specify his current role.

Update 6:25PM PDT: TechCrunch reports that Christie's retirement has been known within the company for weeks and that there has "been a distinct lack of drama in this transition". The piece also says Christie will stay at Apple for a while longer working on "special projects", similar to former SVP Bob Mansfield, and that he has moved into a role with no direct reports.

Update 6:51PM PDT: John Gruber concurs, saying that his sources inside Apple say that while there have been disagreements between Christie and Ive, it isn't anything out of the ordinary. He also says Christie may be staying at the company through the end of the year.
The basic gist I've heard is that Christie is a guy who's been in a high-pressure, high-profile job for 18 years, most of it reporting to Steve Jobs. He's made a lot of money and is ready to enjoy it. That's largely in line with the Apple PR line given to the WSJ, but I heard all of this from ground-level Cupertino-area pixel-pushing designers.
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Article Link: Apple Confirms Retirement of Senior Designer Greg Christie Later This Year
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/04/09/apple-confirms-christie-departure/
mdridwan47

mdridwan47

macrumors 6502
Jan 20, 2014
478
777
Damn you Jony! First Scott, then iOS and now Greg. Please make great hardware as you always do and give back UI/UX design to the experienced people.
 
P

Paradoxally

macrumors 68000
Feb 4, 2011
1,964
2,739
Now hire a good designer to transform those horrid icons into something elegant for iOS 8.
 
iBlazed

iBlazed

macrumors 68000
Feb 27, 2014
1,594
1,249
New Jersey, United States
mdridwan47 said:
Damn you Jony! First Scott, then iOS and now Greg. Please make great hardware as you always do and give back UI/UX design to the experienced people.
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iOS 6 looked like crap, it was cute for 2007 but it was played out by 2011. The iOS 7 design is here to stay (for a couple of generations anyway), people really need to get over it. I think it's safe to say that with its incredible adoption rate the vast majority of people favor the redesign. I'm one of them. Scott was holding iOS back, and it would have set Apple back if iOS 7 came out without a complete UI overhaul.

Paradoxally said:
Now hire a good designer to transform those horrid icons into something elegant for iOS 8.
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Fine, as long as they look nothing like iOS 6 icons.
 
F

FrizzleFryBen

macrumors 6502
Dec 14, 2009
453
179
Charlotte, NC
Interesting they went out of their way to be sure to mention Jony and how closely he worked with the Human Interface team. Irrelevant if you're not trying to prove a point.
 
inscrewtable

inscrewtable

macrumors 68000
Oct 9, 2010
1,656
402
I never thought I'd be saying this, but with this new turn of events, and the never ending reaction to external 'make more money' forces, I am beginning to feel that Apple is losing its way. But then maybe it will take a new crisis before Apple gets a grip on itself. Or maybe it's true that without Jobs, our beautiful Apple, is slowly but surely morphing into a faceless megalithic money machine.
 
jbyun04

jbyun04

macrumors 6502a
Aug 31, 2008
556
55
Canada
I don't understand, do the iOS7 icon haters stare at the icons more than they use the actual apps? Get over it.
 
A

afsnyder

macrumors 65816
Jan 7, 2014
1,270
33
inscrewtable said:
I never thought I'd be saying this, but with this new turn of events, and the never ending reaction to external 'make more money' forces, I am beginning to feel that Apple is losing its way. But then maybe it will take a new crisis before Apple gets a grip on itself. Or maybe it's true that without Jobs, our beautiful Apple, is slowly but surely morphing into a faceless megalithic money machine.
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I have a feeling that WE're just digging into it too much. The more they report on these things the more you/we feel like something is going wrong.

Trust me, nothing is wrong. The only thing different about Apple is the people who are working at Apple. If anything, different approaches to the same overall goals will be made and in some cases it will be for good and others for worse. You just have to wait and see what happens.
 
springsup

springsup

macrumors 65816
Feb 14, 2013
1,221
1,209
iBlazed said:
iOS 6 looked like crap, it was cute for 2007 but it was played out by 2011. The iOS 7 design is here to stay (for a couple of generations anyway), people really need to get over it. I think it's safe to say that with its incredible adoption rate the vast majority of people favor the redesign. I'm one of them. Scott was holding iOS back, and it would have set Apple back if iOS 7 came out without a complete UI overhaul.
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I think that's an incredibly stretching thing to read from the adoption statistics of a required update.

There are lots of things I don't like about the iOS7 design, but the iPhone platform overall is much better and I'm praying that they sort the design issues out at some point. The icons are one of those issues - I don't like them, but I can live with them for now.
 
Yojimbo007

Yojimbo007

macrumors 6502a
Jun 13, 2012
692
574
FrizzleFryBen said:
Interesting they went out of their way to be sure to mention Jony and how closely he worked with the Human Interface team. Irrelevant if you're not trying to prove a point.
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Irrelevant?
He is going to be to chief honcho ! How is that irrelevant ?
 
J

JHankwitz

macrumors 68000
Oct 31, 2005
1,911
58
Wisconsin
apolloa said:
Will be interesting to see where iOS and the iPhone are in 2 years now.

Lots of rats have escaped this ship since Jobs died, wonder if it's sinking and no one knows yet?
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Apple employees at this level have been making a lot of money in the form of stock and bonuses for many years. After 20 years of service, he well deserves some time to start spending some of it. Smart move!
 
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