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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.

The guy is retiring, been here 30 years. Doesn't he deserve to enjoy life a bit? LOL. This is not a reflection on Cook. Maybe the guy has made enough money for this lifetime.
 
What a sad commentary on Cook.
Just no.

The problem with threads like this is that they bring out comments like yours, comments made without any context for a career in high-tech (or any specialty.)

It is considered odd if someone stays with one company all their life.

Making career moves is expected of professionals.

The company (or institution) remains, but the individuals populating the billets turn over.

This is how life has been since at least the middle of the 20th century.

"Lifers", as they are called, are mostly a thing of the past.
 
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.
My iPhone 15+ has far better battery life than the iPhone 4S that I started with back in 2012! USB-C is all a laptop needs these days. You want more than get a pro model! You still using Firewire and Ethernet?
 
This can be a good and a bad thing….

On the positive side it allows new talent to either move up, or come into the company. Its all good having people spend 30 plus years at companies but sometimes, not saying in this case, but sometimes can be to the detriment of not having change and fresh takes on things.

And new talent can be young, middle age or senior… we can all make contributions
 
Hire Steve Balmer!

Watch_Steve_Ballmer_go_nuts-cef41d3bba844550c65da5c4741e3449
I miss him lol
 
do you have insights on his performance that you can share?
an organizational structure does not have to be a barrier for success ...
Are you a designer? Have you worked under a variety of managers on various design teams? Because I am and have and I can assure you that no design team succeeds with an operations manager in charge of it.
 
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.
Dude was at Apple for 32 years. He's retiring. That's all there is to it. Old guard leaves. New blood comes in. It's going to happen eventually.
 
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Somebody retires after being at a company for 30 years. Why does Bloomberg (and Mac Rumors) think this is newsworthy?
Because of the reasons outlined in the article. This is the last senior member of the Ive era design department at Apple and literally the last top flight designer in an upper level management position at the company generally. Given the fact that Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world and that they built the brand on the strength of their hardware and interface designs it’s absolutely news worthy, especially since Apple identifies Jeff Williams as stepping into the role and makes no mention of searching for a dedicated designer to fill it instead.
 
Are you a designer? Have you worked under a variety of managers on various design teams? Because I am and have and I can assure you that no design team succeeds with an operations manager in charge of it.
I've worked in new product development/introduction for over 2 decades, let's not go there ...
 
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I've worked in new product development/introduction for over 2 decades, let's not go there ...

I have no idea why you’d want to avoid talking about the topic. But whatever. You’re welcome to your anecdotes and I’m welcome to mine. In my experience successful design teams are lead by designers. When operations managers run design projects things typically go off the rails. Because most operations managers have no background in design and are therefore unqualified to manage those who do.
 
Bring back Scott Forstall and make him CEO! Completely purge all Apple software of the ugly Microsoft pioneered flat design and replace it with skeuomorphism. No, don't replace it with that half-a**ed garbage called "neumorphism," which is the latest industry bandwagon that Apple decided to hop on due to lack of innovative ideas coming from Tim Cook. Neumorphism is a form of flat design. Flat design and neumorphism need to be replaced with full-throttle skeuomorphism. Bring back all the exact same iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion skeuomporphic graphics, make them higher resolution for the higher resolution screens, and create new iOS 6-style and OS X Mountain Lion-style graphics for the features that did not exist when iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion were released.
 
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.
Apple silicon was Steve Jobs’s doing when he bought PA semi. The M series chip is just a modified A series chip.

Aesthetics has always been a big part of Apple’s ethos, dating back to the Apple computer then the Mac, iMac, iPod, etc. not all designs were successful but the point people are making is that Apple took bold risks. Now they’re driven by numbers on a spreadsheet.
 
While acknowledging that this guy has simply retired and it’s not necessarily a reflection on the company, something has been seriously rotten at Apple since they put a notch in a laptop and cut a giant slot into the iPhone screen for the sake of someone’s software idea.
 
They may be making money but the soul of the company left the building a long time ago. They're heading for a major downturn in the future if they're not careful. Once Steve Jobs died and the last remnants of his ideas were spent they just kept on raising prices because that was the only thing bean counter Tim Cook could do.
 
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