Jony Ive has retaken day-to-day management of Apple’s world-class design teams after two years. The news was first shared by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in a Friday tweet.
Since 1996, Ive had been directly managing design teams at the Cupertino technology giant up until May 2015 when he got promoted to the newly created position of Chief Design Officer.
That also meant handing off some day-to-day management of Apple’s tightly-knit hardware and software design teams to Vice President of User Interface Design Alan Dye and Vice President of Industrial Design Richard Howarth, who then reported directly to CEO Tim Cook.
The London-born designer has remained responsible for all of Apple’s design teams, he just wasn’t managing them directly. Apple’s Leadership webpage was updated earlier today to reflect that Dye and Howarth are no longer Vice Presidents.
Ive’s own bio page was also refreshed to make it clear that he now once again controls all design at the company, including the look and feel of Apple’s hardware, user interface, packaging, major architectural projects, as well new ideas and future initiatives and more.
Gurman’s Bloomberg article relays this message from Apple spokesperson Amy Bessette:
With the completion of Apple Park, Apple’s design leaders and teams are again reporting directly to Jony Ive, who remains focused purely on design.
In other words, Ive, who is 50 years old, is still charged with blue sky thinking, new product initiatives and large-scale architectural projects like the new Apple Park headquarters and reshaping of Apple Retail with next-generation store design.
The greatest retaking of management that we have ever done. #Apple #OneMoreThing https://t.co/y7Bn9ihbke
— ᴺᴼᵀ Jony Ive (@JonyIveParody) December 8, 2017
But with Apple Park now practically completed and many of the flagship stores having been overhauled, he got his wind back and is now back to his day-to-day managerial duties as the head of industrial design, software design and all other design at Apple.
Ive began leading Apple’s industrial design team around 1996, right before Steve Jobs returned from exile back to the company he co-founded. In 2012, a year after becoming the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook put Ive in charge of software design as well.
Bottom line: Dye and Howarth once again report to Ive now that the new campus is finished. Here’s hoping that Jony will focus his energies on fixing iOS and other Apple software.
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