Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Jony Ive's Involvement at Apple Reportedly Tapered After the Original Apple Watch Launched in 2015

I'm curious if Ive is really leaving because the culture has changed and if innovation is no longer top priority? By starting his own company, he sets the culture and gets to focus on what he loves best. You can Bet Microsoft and Google will be tapping him to design their devices as well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kazmac and 5105973
HurtinMinorKey said:
The problem is that he wasn't really doing that well before his reduced roll. Designs have pretty much been stagnant since 2012.
Click to expand...

Wow I haven't felt like that at all. In my view it's "all the little things" and each iteration has brought changes worth making (and, buying). Sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but Apple understands design and implements it and integrates it with software and "the ecosystem" in ways no other gear manufacturer manages to do for my money.

Jony and his team don't control everything at Apple, and I'd love to be a fly on the wall in some of the meetings where design and engineering collide with the beancounters and the marketing and supply chain managers... wow... the fireworks must get very entertaining as long as one is just a fly on the wall... but that team's contributions have been and will continue to be key in what makes the products and that ecosystem worth investing in as users and/or as shareholders.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kazmac and 5105973
atropos said:
I think Tim Cook and the new environment make jony quit... and the apple culture (it used to be) is long gone
Click to expand...
Thank the gods. It’s about time.

With Ive out of the picture, they can fill that void with a new and better person.

It won’t be that hard. He kept the bar pretty low with all his self-absorbed “arty” bad ideas.

They probably realized that if they kept him around much longer Apple devices would become so thin they’d cease to exist.
 
I wonder if the Odd Ball design of the upcoming MacPro was the straw that broke it for him :D
I wish him good luck. Many long time Apple employees leave to start their own companies and have been successful. I don't see any reason IVE can't do the same.

Also, we all know Ive was making bank over at Apple. I'm certain his move away form Apple means more than just a salary with a bunch of zeros at the end of it. Good for him.
 
It's easy to hate on Ive and his minimalism motto due to butterfly keyboards, missing SD card slots, no USB-A on notebooks even though it is still very widely used even to this day in late June 2019, no extension power cord in the box, no MagSafe, no glowing Apple logo, a priority on thinness over cooling, etc. But Ive has contributed to some amazing designs and innovations, which remain true even if that was done under the watch of Steve Jobs. So even though I myself have been rather negative on Ive over the last several years because he hasn't done anything to really shock us in a good way, I do thank him for his earlier contributions.

With that said, Apple must continue to innovate, and if Ive's departure can lead to something insanely great happening again, then I am all for it. But if it is merely a matter of Apple kicking out minor revisions of existing designs, or designs that are so expensive no one but companies or wealthy professionals can afford (e.g., the new Mac Pro), then it still could not be said Apple is doing anything truly innovative in that such innovations wouldn't be directly accessible by The Rest of Us. The fact that Tim Cook is a utterly hands-off when it comes to the design team at Apple, and the fact that there is really no one person at all that has groundbreaking product vision and the power to move all departments of Apple simultaneously like Jobs did results in our skepticism. Apple really is too big to fail, but that doesn't mean they will offer insanely great products that you and I will enjoy. It will therefore be curious to see what kind of company Apple becomes over the next 10 years, especially because at some point Tim Cook too will likely step down, being replaced no doubt by yet another Apple insider.
 
ghostwriter said:
Good question. From the investor perspective, Apple has tripled revenue under Tim's leadership. That's also a crucial consideration when a board considers CEO performance. Apple's gross profit margin has fallen a small bit (Dec 2018 37.99% and March 2019 37.61%) in recent months but remain similar to margins under Steve's leadership.
Click to expand...

Of course, investors will love Tim. It’s really customers that are getting the short end of the stick.
 
ChineseBots said:
He gets paid THAT MUCH only to show up twice a week? With minimal effort he had put into Apple design recent years, this is straight up stealing LOL.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Its like an MLB player. He got paid for what he did in the past....not the future.
 
cfurlin said:
Thank the gods. It’s about time.

With Ive out of the picture, they can fill that void with a new and better person.

It won’t be that hard. He kept the bar pretty low with all his self-absorbed “arty” bad ideas.

They probably realized that if they kept him around much longer Apple devices would become so thin they’d cease to exist.
Click to expand...
Yet Windows OEM devices are just as thin or thinner than Macs. As are most Android phones.
 
LizKat said:
Wow I haven't felt like that at all. In my view it's "all the little things" and each iteration has brought changes worth making (and, buying). Sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but Apple understands design and implements it and integrates it with software and "the ecosystem" in ways no other gear manufacturer manages to do for my money.

Jony and his team don't control everything at Apple, and I'd love to be a fly on the wall in some of the meetings where design and engineering collide with the beancounters and the marketing and supply chain managers... wow... the fireworks must get very entertaining as long as one is just a fly on the wall... but that team's contributions have been and will continue to be key in what makes the products and that ecosystem worth investing in as users and/or as shareholders.
Click to expand...
I think some in the Apple commentariat are just flat out wrong. Ive doesn’t show up one day and say hey the new Mac Pro is going to look like a trash can. Obviously the company went in a direction that informed that design. And at the time the company was very proud of it. Schiller on stage saying “can’t innovate my a—“; Jeff Williams narrating a video of the manufacturing process in Texas. To lay all the blame for that product on Ive is ridiculous. The trash can Mac Pro was nothing like the gold Apple Watch which one could argue was a pet project of Ive’s that perhaps others in the company weren’t comfortable with. No that Mac Pro was the entire company incorrectly reading where the market was going. Hence why they created this pro products team which informed the newest design.
 
Apple is simply adapting into the future for design, somebody that thinks completely out of the box.

All big fashion and creative houses change creative directors and design heads every decade or so. The IVE era is over but that doesn't mean Apple will be cranking out crap design.

Mac Pro is a good design, maybe Ive wasn't even that involved in it.

The latest Samsung galaxy looks good and they don't have a Jony Ive. He is highly overrated. What made most of Apple's successes was Jobs' boldness, not Ive.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nouveau_redneck
smaffei said:
Yet, Ive still found time to make those lousy product introduction voiceovers that I love to make fun of. You know, those "magical" ones with "al-loo-minium"!
Click to expand...
The “loo” was for Americans who otherwise wouldn’t have realised what he was saying, since they have a weird variant for it in their local dialect.
 
IPPlanMan said:
The butterfly keyboard is the surest sign he started phoning it in long ago. Showing up twice a week? No wonder this crap happens.

He gets paid too much to get any sympathy from me. This is a man who will never have to worry about having enough money for whatever he wants or doing a job that he loves.

Here’s the world’s thinnest violin for you Jony. Good riddance.
Click to expand...

I think we should show a little more respect for the man that designed everything Apple since around 1998. After 20 years, its ok to be burned out of new ideas. One can only give so much. Think of him as pro-athlete that is nearing his retirement.
 
DNichter said:
Probably makes sense to integrate some new blood into the design team anyway. I am sure it is a challenge to design for any tech company as you always need to be thinking about the implementation and the manufacturing process as well. Either way, I am not expecting much change from what we have seen over the last 5-10 years.
Click to expand...

Exactly. After reading through the handful of melodramatic, know-it-all posts at the start of this thread, someone posts what I was thinking. I'm betting Apple doesn't want to repeat the same risk they took with Steve Jobs' sudden departure. Let the culture of great design created by Ives and Jobs continue to flourish with new people and new ideas while Ives is still walking the planet. Pass the torch now while it's convenient instead of waiting until it's urgent.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DNichter
Come on guys, all Jony Ive’s design product are those featured in Design by Apple book. Anything beyond that, are Tim Cook’s call.
 
Tired? With his millions? HAHAA

When you can literally afford anything, and are working doing your passion - you have no grounds to not be giving 200% every single day. Otherwise its not really your passion anymore.

His sub employees would literally kill to have his role. By the sounds of it they've had to carry his ass for years now..
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ulenspiegel
Looking at my iMac after watching all these vids of 90s computers then the Bondi then the 20thc iMac - how far we have come. The current iMac is a beautiful object and very well suited to its space. I think Jony had that vision 20 years ago before the tech and machining was available.
  • He moved out of the grey box into cyber-grunge, see-through plastic which was the fashion at the time.
  • But then with flat-screens he really embraced the industrial-corporate machined look, while keeping lines thin and smooth as silk and that was a master stroke.
  • Phone and watch also brilliant obviously.
  • Airpods great but will get much smaller over time.
  • iPad I've always considered just a big iPhone design wise.
So all in an amazing run. Moved from grey box to first attempts at minutarisation to whole new applications of portability because of "thinness". I don't get why everyone so scathing of thinness - that focus is what produced all the great devices of our times. Jobs realised that's why Japanese/Sony design was so much classier than US design and Jony added the Braun/Dieter Rams seriousness, perhaps appropriate for post 911. I get the feeling that is all about to change again - trainers are getting more and more colourful. I think colour will be be coming back to Apple soon, starting with the Airpods.
 
It didn’t surprise me as we were seeing him less and less over the years. I can’t remember the last time I saw him at an Apple event and I don’t recall if the iPhone XS having a voice over video.
 
ghostwriter said:
Absolutely agree. Without Steve at the helm, it appears to me that Ive lost his passion. The environment Steve created at Apple, chaos and all, worked for Apple and I'd argue it worked for Ive. Having been a part of executive teams executing at the speed of light, it can only be done for so long before the human body just says "enough". Ive was honest when he said he'd simply grown "very tired". None of us performs well when we're tired and given the relationship between Jonny and Steve, I also suspect his passion for Apple died along with Steve.
Click to expand...

I agree. Plus: Some comments here read as if someone is not allowed to express his genuine feeling of being honestly tired. After 30 years being successful, contributing to the brand in a major way and having created unique designs one is likely to change their focus and to move on in life. I assume, most of those around here who are picking on Ive would not even remotely be able to deliver that kind of performance in this or in a similar job. Quite likely they have never seen an executive team from the inside at least once.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: daveak and inkswamp
Who did what the last few years, only insiders know. His last big known influence was the watch, & since the spaceship campus is done, felt time for change.

Halving the weight for the 2012 iMac was brilliant, but thinning was unnecessary.

Now, we're becoming futurists. What will be Apple's place in the next decade?

We can anticipate their next "hit" will be in financial services with the Apple card...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back