Apple 'Shakes Up' Oversight of Product Design Ahead of CEO Change

[Tagbert]

I have hopes the Iphone 18 has a different design. I long for the day they remove the dynamic island, and have edge to edge displays.

Most rumors have the next change expected with next year's 20th anniversary iPhone. There is talk of moving some of the sensors in the Dynamic Island to be under the screen and beveled edges. Probably still some Dynamic Island but with shrinkage.

 

[name99]

No CEO can run a trillion dollar company like that. He needs to make sure his leadership team is executing well and get rid of the dead weight.

The way you do that is you have "spies" in each department, people whom the CEO trusts but who do not formally report to them and who are not known by everyone else. The spies get an honest view of morale, progress etc and report informally to the CEO, eg at lunch on the weekend.

Of course this requires the CEO to have access to such people (not easy) and for such people not to have their own agendas (not easy). This is one advantage of having a CEO that's come up through the ranks and is very friendly, so just happens to know a large number of people across the company and has the kind of friendliness/charisma that makes people willing to talk if invited to a weekend lunch.

(You'd be surprised how many well-run companies operate this way...)

 

[Neepman]

In other words, urinating on the rock just because one can.

 

[CharlesShaw]

Dear Senior Product Design leaders. How are you? I am fine. My mom said I should mail you my list to the North Pole, ooops, I mean Cupertino, but there is only one thing on it. Please let me know when my new iPhone mini is ready so my mom can arrange to pick it up at the Apple Store. Have a great summer.

 

[Ralfi]

I thought/hoped the redesign was reverting away from the two-tone backs of the Pro models. Although, if they went the other way & doubled-down on it by making the camera area also in the lighter tone of the rear, then it would’ve looked like a big “i”, as in iPhone.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Now do the software.👍

If anything, it's the software team that needs a shakeup. Like San Andreas fault kind of shakeup.

Exactly. I like the way this re-org sounds, with two people responsible for the products and one person overall responsible for reliability.

This is exactly what we need in software, I just wonder where it's going to come from. Clearly they have lots of hardware talent to choose from and that division is already doing great.

I'm really looking forward to the next story about how they managed to do that in software. I just hope it's not CFed that's put in charge of it.