Is that what it shows? Neither of these guys was doing great work. I think it’s a much needed changing of the guard.
Great piece by Gruber regarding Dye. I recommend reading all of but these paragraphs stand out:
daringfireball.net
Great piece by Gruber regarding Dye. I recommend reading all of but these paragraphs stand out:
"It remains worrisome that Apple needed to luck into Dye leaving the company. But fortune favors the prepared, and Apple remains prepared by having an inordinate number of longtime talented HI designers at the company. The oddest thing about Alan Dye’s stint leading software design is that there are, effectively, zero design critics who’ve been on his side. The debate regarding Apple’s software design over the last decade isn’t between those on Dye’s side and those against. It’s only a matter of debating how bad it’s been, and how far it’s fallen from its previous remarkable heights. It’s rather extraordinary in today’s hyper-partisan world that there’s nearly universal agreement amongst actual practitioners of user-interface design that Alan Dye is a fraud who led the company deeply astray. It was a big problem inside the company too. I’m aware of dozens of designers who’ve left Apple, out of frustration over the company’s direction, to work at places like LoveFrom, OpenAI, and their secretive joint venture io. I’m not sure there are any experience designers at io who aren’t ex-Apple, and if there are, it’s only a handful. From the stories I’m aware of, the theme is identical: these are designers driven to do great work, and under Alan Dye, “doing great work” was no longer the guiding principle at Apple. If reaching the most users is your goal, go work on design at Google, or Microsoft, or Meta. (Design, of course, isn’t even a thing at Amazon.) Designers choose to work at Apple to do the best work in the industry. That has stopped being true under Alan Dye."
"Alan Dye is not untalented. But his talents at Apple were in politics. His political skill was so profound that it was his decision to leave, despite the fact that his tenure is considered a disaster by actual designers inside and outside the company. He obviously figured out how to please Apple’s senior leadership. His departure today landed as a total surprise because his stature within the company seemed so secure. And so I think he might do very well at Meta. Not because he can bring world-class interaction design expertise — because he obviously can’t — but because the path to success at Meta has never been driven by design. It’s about getting done what Zuck wants done. Dye might excel at that. Dye was an anchor holding Apple back"
Bad Dye Job
It might have made some sense to bring someone from the fashion/brand world to lead software design for Apple Watch, but it sure didn’t seem to make sense for the rest of Apple’s platforms. And the decade of Dye’s HI leadership has proven it.
One of his best pieces of writing in a long time.Great piece by Gruber regarding Dye. I recommend reading all of but these paragraphs stand out:
"It remains worrisome that Apple needed to luck into Dye leaving the company. But fortune favors the prepared, and Apple remains prepared by having an inordinate number of longtime talented HI designers at the company. The oddest thing about Alan Dye’s stint leading software design is that there are, effectively, zero design critics who’ve been on his side. The debate regarding Apple’s software design over the last decade isn’t between those on Dye’s side and those against. It’s only a matter of debating how bad it’s been, and how far it’s fallen from its previous remarkable heights. It’s rather extraordinary in today’s hyper-partisan world that there’s nearly universal agreement amongst actual practitioners of user-interface design that Alan Dye is a fraud who led the company deeply astray. It was a big problem inside the company too. I’m aware of dozens of designers who’ve left Apple, out of frustration over the company’s direction, to work at places like LoveFrom, OpenAI, and their secretive joint venture io. I’m not sure there are any experience designers at io who aren’t ex-Apple, and if there are, it’s only a handful. From the stories I’m aware of, the theme is identical: these are designers driven to do great work, and under Alan Dye, “doing great work” was no longer the guiding principle at Apple. If reaching the most users is your goal, go work on design at Google, or Microsoft, or Meta. (Design, of course, isn’t even a thing at Amazon.) Designers choose to work at Apple to do the best work in the industry. That has stopped being true under Alan Dye."
"Alan Dye is not untalented. But his talents at Apple were in politics. His political skill was so profound that it was his decision to leave, despite the fact that his tenure is considered a disaster by actual designers inside and outside the company. He obviously figured out how to please Apple’s senior leadership. His departure today landed as a total surprise because his stature within the company seemed so secure. And so I think he might do very well at Meta. Not because he can bring world-class interaction design expertise — because he obviously can’t — but because the path to success at Meta has never been driven by design. It’s about getting done what Zuck wants done. Dye might excel at that. Dye was an anchor holding Apple back"
Bad Dye Job
It might have made some sense to bring someone from the fashion/brand world to lead software design for Apple Watch, but it sure didn’t seem to make sense for the rest of Apple’s platforms. And the decade of Dye’s HI leadership has proven it.
And it’s shown.
Used to be very prestigious to work at Apple. I am guessing they could low-ball for the given opportunity to work for them. Just the same as Tesla.
I’d also add that having someone who really cared about apple’s services from a product pov would be important too.
