New report sheds more light on Jony Ive’s departure

Legendary designer Jony Ive is no longer a part of Apple — well, sort of; he’ll still be freelancing the same gig — but many questions about the nature of his departure still remain. 

A new report by The Wall Street Journal has a number of details and anecdotes that give us a better idea of what drove Ive away. 

It doesn’t offer a single answer; instead, a multitude of issues piled up over the years. For one, CEO Tim Cook and other Apple leaders just weren’t interested in product design as much as Ive would’ve liked them to be. He was absent from the company a lot in the past couple of years. And finally, Apple has struggled to launch a clearly winning product for a while, increasing the pressure on the company’s head of design. 

The report claims that Cook rarely visited Apple’s design studio, which “dispirited” Ive. Also, Ive reportedly didn’t like the fact that Apple’s board of directors became populated by people with backgrounds in finance and operations, rather than technology. 

As a result, Ive grew increasingly distant from his own team within Apple over the years, having effectively withdrawn from its management circa 2015. 

One point of contention was the Apple Watch, which launched that year. Ive wanted it to be a fashion accessory, while some Apple leaders wanted it to be an extension of the iPhone, with the ultimate result being a compromise. But the $17,000, gold version of the Watch — which apparently was more in line with Ive’s vision of what the device should’ve been — didn’t sell well. 

The report describes several episodes in which Ive was simply not there to advise on key design changes of various Apple products, including the iPhone X’s UI, and the Camera app. In 2017, things started to unravel further, with a “key designer” leaving Apple, and others considering it. Four “longtime” members of the design team left over the past year. 

Ive made a sort of comeback in 2017, getting more closely involved with the work of industrial design and human interface teams within Apple. But the results weren’t there, with iPhone X sales being flat, HomePod being late and selling poorly, and AirPower being scrapped altogether. 

Ive was obviously too important to Apple for either side to just sever ties, but given the issues outlined in the report, one has to wonder how the new arrangement, in which Ive’s new company LoveFrom will work together with Apple on product design, will work out.