Apple Announces Upcoming Departure of Lead Product Designer Evans Hankey

[0924487]

Evans Hankey’s a woman.

She's got a confusingly boyish name 😂.

Evan is like the name of those big ice hockey guys, but Evans is a girls name.

 

[Xand&Roby]

If only all the „experts“ in this thread could be bothered to apply for a job in Cupertino … the golden age of Apple design would finally begin to happen.

The “experts” on MacRumors (with the complicity of the staff who have always protected them) are the ones who have spent the last 15 years throwing **** on Ive and then getting excited for toilets like the Mac Studio or that **** of Dinamic Island.
To put the facts and reality in order.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

If this is the guy that decided the over priced entry level iPad should have the landscape oriented camera, yet the iPad Pros shouldn’t, then I say Bye!!

That's be the product owner, not the designer.

 

[Karma*Police]

People keep saying here "Ive would never have done this" when a new design comes out for something. And now it is Ive's designs? Please pick one, people!

Not sure what you mean. Both things could be true at the same time. I don’t know anyone who said Ive was infallible. But he had a vision, pushed the envelope, and more often than not, the world benefited.

 

[TightLines]

Another creative innovator tired of seeing Apple being run by the wall street parasite types… it kills their desire to think different and kills the moral of the teams… Tim Cook needs to decide who makes Apple the money… the designers and creators of their products, or the ones looking to squeeze money out of the company destined for its shareholders… Apple has lost its creative mojo and its showing... These people departing are a huge drain on the real talent… its sad to see really.

 

[topdrawer]

If only all the „experts“ in this thread could be bothered to apply for a job in Cupertino … the golden age of Apple design would finally begin to happen.

imagine if they hire the guy that does those goggle renderings for mac rumors. lol

 

[ghanwani]

Can’t be a loss for the company given what we have seen since 2019.

 

[jamisonbaines]

maybe the AR headset is just gonna be so ugly (hard to imagine it looking cool) and she wanted out before that

everything has mostly been to my liking except that airpod max case
mbp could've kept the touch bar with a half size function row
mba headphone jack to the left

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Both things could be true at the same time.

What I posted would be a contradiction so it is impossible for both to be true at the same time. I guess you misunderstood what I wrote. Write yourself a ticket for that one, I guess.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Can’t be a loss for the company given what we have seen since 2019.

Referring to which products?

 

[Robert.Walter]

Just as long as whoever designed the trackpad Apple TV remote doesn’t get the top job it will probably be ok.

 

[erikkfi]

The design chief should report directly to the CEO. And should have the power to stop things like the USBC-to-lightning adapter for the Apple Pencil 1 from happening in 2022.

 

[imnotthewalrus]

Thanks for all the hard work Evans, so many amazingly good designs over the last years, will be missed.


You nailed it here. It's going to be a combination of what designers want with what engineers can do within cost constraints enforced by others (hello Apple pencil v1 on the new base iPad total cost call there) - and then of course you have the top execs who oversee it all who could affect things.

As others have pointed out, Apple has done astoundingly well under their current CEO, but the company misses someone at the flyover exec level who would put their foot down and say "you know what folks, this really sucks, we can't do it like this.", that Job's did - thinking of Apple Watch v3 carried on for years where you could not do a OS update without doing a factory reset 1st, every single time, or this goofy v1 pencil on the iPad etc..

The company is doing fine without that, but it would do better with someone making these calls and keeping the user experience quality at top notch (for everything). Tough to get someone like that, which the CEO could trust who wouldn't also be an ego centric nut job though.

Bravo. Well thought and executed comment. we could use more of that around here.

 

[ralpa]

No successor needed. There is no new design in Apple products. Just flat and round design taking turns every other year

 

[Jumpthesnark]

Another creative innovator tired of seeing Apple being run by the wall street parasite types

And how do you know this is her reason for leaving?

 

[Mac47]

I think the trashcan Mac Pro design would work well for the Mac Studio though I was hoping they would bring back the cube in metal form.

I agree. The G4 Cube was the most beautiful computer Apple ever made, and it deserves to be given a reimagining in the present. They could easily have done so with the Studio, too.

 

[jjudson]

Apple has done astoundingly well under their current CEO

It depends on the metric. Monetarily? To shareholders? Yes. As a visionary -- which is Apple's main true capital -- a resounding NO. Tim needs to step aside. It's time for him to take his massive payout (which goes the the monetary success line above) and allow Apple to seek out a visionary for a return their roots...

 

[God of Biscuits]

Maybe that's his reason for leaving, he's had enough of Tim Apple?

SHE. And why do people take it personally?

 

[testcard]

Maybe that's his reason for leaving, he's had enough of Tim Apple?

Er…”but her successor has not been named yet”.

 

[God of Biscuits]

explains a lot really, the latest products show it, they need to hire a new team that are best for the job

Explains nothing. That’s not how things work.

 

[Flash1420]

Apple needs to go back to being a design-first company not an operations-first company. They should bring back Jony Ive, however, they should also include more collaboration between different teams. I know not all of his designs are great, but he was a visionary designer. The current execs at Apple are just focused on making more money. They been taking corners in product design and build quality recently in some categories.

 

[Devnul0]

If she was responsible for their packaging designs of the past several years then my kudos to her. What Apple has done with paper is quite impressive, and a really nice presentation as well. Form, function, and style.

 

[performa_6400]

I like the consistency she brought to the new family of MacBooks, but I don't like the clunkiness. Feels like they leaned too far into function over form, where Jony went too far in the opposite direction after Steve's passing.

 

[GuruZac]

I don't think I would agree with that. The products from the recent years have mostly changed for the better since the Ive era, especially the new Macs with more functional designs.

New MacBook Pros are awesome, as is the new MacBook Air. iMac is also a great looking hardware minus the pastel colors on the front side. iPad Pros are amazing hardware held back by lackluster software. iPhone dynamic Island should have been a dynamic peninsula coming down form the top to make less intrusive.

 

[Silencio]

she's responsible for the airpods max case BTW. that was disgusting

Nah, the designer on that project left Apple a while ago to go work with Jony.

He's a brilliant industrial designer. Sometimes you get a really bad design brief and have to make the best of it.