Apple’s Chief Designer Jony Ive Leaving the Company

Apple’s chief designer Jony Ive is leaving the company after nearly 30 years at Cupertino. Ive is widely known for designing the iPhone, as well as many other Apple products. Ive’s iconic voice has been the highlight of many Apple promotional videos, too.

Apple today announced that Ive is leaving the company to form his own independent design company. In an exclusive interview with the Financial Times, Ive revealed that he is launching a new creative business called LoveFrom, which will launch fully in 2020. Ive’s LoveFrom will have Apple as its first client, and he hopes to continue working with the company going forward. His transition away from the company will start by the end of this year.

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“Apple will continue to benefit from Jony’s talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built. After so many years working closely together, I’m happy that our relationship continues to evolve and I look forward to working with Jony long into the future,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. 

Apple won’t have an immediate successor to Ive just yet. For now, Evans Hankey, vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, vice president of Human Interface Design, will report to Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer.

Ive’s departure from Apple is obviously a huge surprise to everyone in the industry. It will be interesting to see how Ive’s new design venture works with Apple going forward.

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Conversation 32 comments

  • BrianEricFord

    27 June, 2019 - 5:21 pm

    <p>I’ll be more interested to see if Ive’s new design venture is as closely tied to Apple as this makes it seem. Strikes me as typical “everything is fine and nothing’s gonna change” morale speak, to me. </p><p><br></p><p>But who knows. Maybe it’s a pre-emptive anti-trust move. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ </p>

  • SvenJ

    27 June, 2019 - 5:29 pm

    <p>Wonder how much of the "<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">brilliant and passionate design team he has built" will be going with him.</span></p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    27 June, 2019 - 5:33 pm

    <p>In all honesty, I wish he and Apple were parting ways completely. I'd love to see what fresh blood in their design department could do. Ive hasn't done anything surprising and new since the iMac G4.</p>

    • jwpear

      Premium Member
      27 June, 2019 - 8:47 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438186">In reply to jimchamplin:</a></em></blockquote><p>My thoughts exactly. Have respect for the guy, but let's see what some others can do.</p>

      • jimchamplin

        Premium Member
        27 June, 2019 - 9:20 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#438213">In reply to jwpear:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yeah. I don’t dislike his work. It’s clean and crisp. But it’s been unchanged now for almost a decade.</p><p><br></p><p>What could someone new do with the foundation he started?</p>

    • Patrick3D

      28 June, 2019 - 9:55 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438186">In reply to jimchamplin:</a></em></blockquote><p>It would be great to have color options return to the Mac lineup, all the bare aluminum is boring, not everyone works in a boardroom.</p>

      • jimchamplin

        Premium Member
        28 June, 2019 - 10:14 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#438277">In reply to Patrick3D:</a></em></blockquote><p>100% with you there.</p>

  • warren

    27 June, 2019 - 5:40 pm

    <p>Hey, better to just quit than to be forced to take responsibility for ruining one of the best keyboards in the history of laptops because of your anorexia fetish, right Jon?</p><p><br></p>

    • Stooks

      28 June, 2019 - 4:56 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438188">In reply to warren:</a></em></blockquote><p>"ruining one of the best keyboards in the history of laptops"</p><p><br></p><p>They keyboards are indeed horrible. I simply hate using my 15inch 2017. That said the ThinkPad (T series) has always had the best keyboards. The Powerbook keyboards were a close second.</p>

  • red.radar

    Premium Member
    27 June, 2019 - 6:48 pm

    <p>He Probably wants to try new things. I can see how a creative person can get tired of making glass rectangles.</p><p><br></p><p>i wish him the best </p>

  • lvthunder

    Premium Member
    27 June, 2019 - 7:27 pm

    <p>Huge Surprise? Not really. After 30 years it's kind of expected if you ask me.</p>

    • Patrick3D

      28 June, 2019 - 9:53 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438209">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>His no-show at the last presentation was a pretty big sign he wasn't involved as deeply anymore as well.</p>

  • waethorn

    27 June, 2019 - 10:00 pm

    <p>Good riddance. His designs have impeded decent engineering at Apple for years now – just ask the Rossman Group.</p>

    • MikeGalos

      28 June, 2019 - 2:46 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438220">In reply to Waethorn:</a></em></blockquote><p>To be fair, it isn't his designs that have impeded Apple's engineering. It was Apple's idiotic management decisions to prioritize his designs over engineering. Competent management would have told Ive, "Engineering needs the following requirements so rework your design to include those". And Ive, being a competent industrial designer, would have done just that.</p><p>Product design is always tradeoffs and choosing design over engineering at that level repeatedly was just bad management.</p>

      • skane2600

        28 June, 2019 - 10:36 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#438246">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>This is probably your best comment on this site.</p>

      • waethorn

        28 June, 2019 - 3:57 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#438246">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>So Apple couldn't control their rabid animal, and Timmy was too much of a panzy to pick up the rifle. Got it.</p>

    • craigb

      28 June, 2019 - 7:37 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#438220"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a><em> I got a good laugh out of that comment. :-)</em></blockquote><p><br></p>

  • bbold

    27 June, 2019 - 10:13 pm

    <p>LoveForm or LoveFrom? Or LoveFoam? lol 😀 </p>

    • craigb

      28 June, 2019 - 7:36 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#438221"><em>In reply to bbold:</em></a><em>I wondered the same thing!!</em></blockquote><p><br></p>

  • skane2600

    28 June, 2019 - 12:09 am

    <p>The real invocation of the iPhone was the UI, not the "box". Was Ive involved in both?</p>

    • Greg Green

      28 June, 2019 - 7:44 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438227">In reply to skane2600:</a></em></blockquote><p>I think he played a big role in the UI design.</p>

  • m_p_w_84

    28 June, 2019 - 2:06 am

    <p>I think it’s disingenuous to say anyone is surprised by this. People claiming this is a shock departure are snidely trying to suggest some sort of problem has triggered his departure.</p><p><br></p><p>The real talent in life is knowing when to let go and move on, just like Bill Gates did. The company needs to and will survive without him. </p><p><br></p><p>Can’t wait to see what fresh blood brings to Apple design.</p>

    • Thom77

      28 June, 2019 - 2:29 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438241">In reply to m_p_w_84:</a></em></blockquote><p>I have little confidence that Apple will replace him with someone because of their abilities and merit, instead of their gender, color, or sexual identity. They already succumbed to the identity politics mob once, and the mob is never satisfied.</p>

    • curtisspendlove

      28 June, 2019 - 7:33 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438241">In reply to m_p_w_84:</a></em></blockquote><p>Also there have been fairly trustworthy rumors for several years suggesting that the new Apple campus was the main reason he was still sticking around. That is done now. </p>

  • codymesh

    28 June, 2019 - 2:36 am

    <p>Ive has undeniably shaped our expectations of how our gadgets should look like, but it definitely feels like design for our technology needs to start moving away from trying to increase our obsession with it to settling into the background</p>

  • rm

    28 June, 2019 - 7:44 am

    <p>Wow, he knows how to make products that are rectangular with rounded corners . . . so what. If he is good, now he can actually prove it.</p>

    • MikeGalos

      29 June, 2019 - 9:55 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438261">In reply to RM:</a></em></blockquote><p>No. He knows how to sketch out products that are rectangular with rounded corners. It was engineering who had to try and figure out how to actually make them. Mostly they were able to. Mostly.</p>

  • Michael_Miller

    28 June, 2019 - 1:57 pm

    <p>Can a voice be iconic?</p>

    • Jackwagon

      Premium Member
      28 June, 2019 - 2:55 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#438337">In reply to Michael_Miller:</a></em></blockquote><p>James Earl Jones has a voice that could be considered "iconic". To say nothing of Morgan Freeman, or Gilbert Gottfried.</p>

  • matsan

    28 June, 2019 - 3:50 pm

    <p>Finally we may get some love for the laptops that have been 100% form-over-function for almost a decade now.</p>

  • melinau

    Premium Member
    29 June, 2019 - 8:48 am

    <p>I don't really buy the story of design brilliance. Apple 'design' has been pretty much stagnant for at least 5 years. I think Jonny[sic] Ive needed Jobs to spur him into anything resembling originality, and now the spur is no-longer there.</p><p><br></p><p>Like others I wish him well and hope he'll move away from the banality that is today's Apple.</p>

  • dontbe evil

    01 July, 2019 - 3:56 am

    <p><span style="color: rgb(55, 62, 68);">go teach how to design trash bin and grater to your next company</span></p>

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