Another Longtime Industrial Designer Leaves Apple

[MacRumors]

Apple is losing yet another longtime industrial design team members, reports Bloomberg. Bart Andre, who has been with Apple for over 30 years, is set to retire this year.

Andre joined Apple in 1992 alongside Jony Ive, and he is one of the last remaining design team members that worked with Ive to establish the design aesthetic Apple was known for during Ive's tenure.

Andre has been helping run the design team following the 2022 departure of Evans Hankey, who served as Apple's vice president of industrial design after Ive left in 2019. When Ive quit Apple to start LoveFrom, several of the designers he had worked with went with him, and since then, other design team members have departed as well.

After Evans Hankey left, Apple eliminated the Product Design Chief role and restructured the product design team under operations chief Jeff Williams. According to Bloomberg, some of the people on the design team are unhappy with being led by an operations person instead of a designer, and cost cutting efforts have also changed the way the design team operates.

Apple now has only a handful of longtime designers that remain at the company.

Article Link: Another Longtime Industrial Designer Leaves Apple

 

[WiiDSmoker]

Marketing and bean counters lead Apple now

 

[JPack]

Farewell to the era of bendgate, butterfly keyboards, and dongle clutter! Not sure if we'll miss you.

 

[nt5672]

What a sad commentary on Cook. These folks were great when they had leadership. But under Cook, they just spiraled out of control. The problem now is that there is still no design capability and no design leadership other than make it as small as possible, ignore functionality and flexibility. Design for mainstream teenagers and twenty-somethings that can be bought with marketing.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

Hey congratulations on your retirement and thank you for many years of dedicated service. Enjoy!

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

What a sad commentary on Cook. These folks were great when they had leadership. But under Cook, they just spiraled out of control.

What? The guy is retiring lol

 

[KaliYoni]

Andre joined Apple in 1992 alongside Jony Ive, and he is one of the last remaining design team members that worked with Ive to establish the design aesthetic Apple was known for during Ive's tenure.

Maybe Andre wants to transform himself into a real estate mogul, along with his former boss (The Ive Organization? Ive Tower? Glass-framed condos with thin walls, no doorknobs and hidden "hover over to see" controls on all the appliances?).

S.F. media mogul sells downtown theater building to famed, former Apple designer

S.F. media mogul Clint Reilly sells downtown theater building to famed, former Apple designer Jony Ive

www.sfchronicle.com

;-)

 

[User 6502]

Farewell to the era of bendgate, butterfly keyboards, and dongle clutter! Not sure if we'll miss you.

At least these were attempts at innovating. Not all innovations worked out well but at least they tried. Now Apple doesn’t try anything anymore. It just copies what others (with half the features and double the price -or worse-). The only research one can find in Apple these days is the one about finding new subscription to harass users with.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

He was going to be Senior product manager for the action button aswell. His loss.

 

[BellSystem]

Dude probably got sick of designing the same block of aluminum for a decade. How many times can you move the same shapes around? His biggest advancement was adding a circle to make three instead of two.

 

[erikkfi]

The design team reporting to an operations VP is a real concern. It's something specific that Steve Jobs cited as an issue with Apple under Sculley and Amelio. I can't deny that putting an operations person in charge of the company has worked out well for the company's value, but I wish Tim would give the design team more free rein to come up with products that truly inspire again.

 

[JPack]

At least these were attempts at innovating. Not all innovations worked out well but at least they tried. Now Apple doesn’t try anything anymore. It just copies what others (with half the features and double the price -or worse-). The only research one can find in Apple these days is the one about finding new subscription to harass users with.

I dunno. Apple Silicon is a pretty big innovation. Making iPhones so thin that they bend and compromise on battery life is not very smart. Neither is using butterfly keyboards that have zero key travel and feedback. MacBooks with only USB-C ports? Jony Ive seems to prioritize aesthetics over functionality, which does not suit real world usage.

 

[J InTech82]

What a sad commentary on Cook. These folks were great when they had leadership. But under Cook, they just spiraled out of control. The problem now is that there is still no design capability and no design leadership other than make it as small as possible, ignore functionality and flexibility. Design for mainstream teenagers and twenty-somethings that can be bought with marketing.

When you're with a company for 32 years, it's not because of new leadership. If he didn't like Cook, he would have left when he stepped in, not 13 years after the fact. The fact that he has been at the company during the changeover of five CEOs says a lot.

 

[EmanuelF]

Glad I discovered Apple during the designer era and not the marketing era.
All there's left of Apple is the designers soul and heritage.

 

[jz0309]

Happy retirement ... and another one bites the dust.
Time for closure on Ive era, some of their stuff was good, some stuff was bad ...
But need to move on, looking back won't help ...

 

[Surf Monkey]

Cementing Tim Cook’s caretaker tenure. Cook doesn’t care about design. He’s a bean counter. Of course the whole company reflects that now.

The best hope IMO is that Cook steps down and Apple promotes a visionary who values high end design, because the idea of Apple without a world class design team makes no sense at all.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Happy retirement ... and another one bites the dust.
Time for closure on Ive era, some of their stuff was good, some stuff was bad ...
But need to move on, looking back won't help ...

Having Jeff Williams in charge of design at Apple is a bad sign. He’s not the right candidate for the job.

 

[Surf Monkey]

When you're with a company for 32 years, it's not because of new leadership. If he didn't like Cook, he would have left when he stepped in, not 13 years after the fact. The fact that he has been at the company during the changeover of five CEOs says a lot.

Maybe. But the bigger point is that Cook clearly does not understand design. If he did he wouldn’t have allowed Apple’s design department to basically wither and die.

 

[CrysisDeu]

Yeah and they released the abomination of the Vision Pro lol.

Apple rode on the success of iPhone for a decade, and when the momentum dies, it not going to look good on them.


All of the new products: Apple Watch, Airpods, all of the services, are heavily dependent on iPhones. If a true paradigm shift comes and Apple is not in the boat. They are in big trouble.

 

[spritle]

Hire Steve Balmer!

 

[Surf Monkey]

I dunno. Apple Silicon is a pretty big innovation. Making iPhones so thin that they bend and compromise on battery life is not very smart. Neither is using butterfly keyboards that have zero key travel and feedback. MacBooks with only USB-C ports? Jony Ive seems to prioritize aesthetics over functionality, which does not suit real world usage.

That’s why it was important to have a design conscious CEO around to keep him reigned in.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Yeah and they released the abomination of the Vision Pro lol.

Apple rode on the success of iPhone for a decade, and when the momentum dies, it not going to look good on them.


All of the new products: Apple Watch, Airpods, all of the services, are heavily dependent on iPhones. If a true paradigm shift comes and Apple is not in the boat. They are in big trouble.

I’d say that the Vision launch and the emptying of their design team strongly suggests that they’re already in trouble. It’ll be interesting to see how much longer Tim Cook remains in the CEO position.

 

[scrapesleon]

Tim Cook please step down do it now

 

[JPack]

That’s why it was important to have a design conscious CEO around to keep him reigned in.

iPhone 6 was conceived when Jobs was still alive.

 

[Surf Monkey]

iPhone 6 was conceived when Jobs was still alive.

So what?