Apple CEO Tim Cook Denies Reports of Disinterest in Design

On June 27, iconic Apple designer Jony Ive announced his departure from the company. Following the announcement, two reports from Bloomberg and WSJ shed some light over the reasoning behind Ive’s departure. More specifically, a report from earlier this week claimed that Ive had left Cupertino after being ‘dispirited’ by CEO Tim Cook’s lack of interest in product design. He’d also left following conflicts with other Apple executives and its board members.

In an unexpected move, Tim Cook has now responded to the story from WSJ, calling it “absurd”. Cook claimed that a lot of the reporting and the conclusions in the story “just doesn’t match with reality”.

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He even went as far as to say that the report lacked an understanding of how the Apple design team and the company works. “It distorts relationships, decisions and events to the point that we just don’t recognize the company it claims to describe.”

“The design team is phenomenally talented”, he added. “We know the truth and we know the incredible things they’re capable of doing. The projects they’re working on will blow you away”, said Cook.

Tim Cook usually doesn’t publicly respond to reports like this, and this is one of the few times the CEO himself has responded to a report, almost completely denying the allegations made. Of course, it’s hard to tell who is actually telling the truth here, but that won’t change the fact that Ive is no longer working directly at Apple.

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Conversation 7 comments

  • Thomas Parkison

    02 July, 2019 - 9:13 am

    <p>My thoughts are that Jony's obsession for "thin for the sake of thin" are is costing Apple serious amounts of cash and now he's been shown the door. Good, now maybe Apple can get back to making stuff that's actually durable and doesn't break if you look at it cross-eyed. Or stops working when a piece of dust gets under it.</p>

    • Rob_Wade

      02 July, 2019 - 10:55 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#439127">In reply to trparky:</a></em></blockquote><p>You could say that about almost every smartphone &amp; similar OEM. Here's the part that frustrates me: The thinner they get, the more breakable they get; the thinner they get, the less battery power they have; to compensate, companies have convinced all the little lemmings that having a phablet is a great thing, when the main driver is the need to get bigger batteries in the devices–since thicker doesn't seem to be acceptable, lemmings thing having 7 and 8 inch devices is actually good thing.</p>

      • warren

        02 July, 2019 - 2:51 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#439155">In reply to Rob_Wade:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Yes, Rob, you -could- say that about other products. Tremendous observation there, good for you. The point is that it's -especially- worth saying about Apple products because Mac year-over-year sales growth <em>completely stopped </em>when Apple started compromising the designs to achieve thinness. This after several years of significant, sustained growth.</p>

  • dontbe evil

    02 July, 2019 - 9:25 am

    <p>sure sure sure… apple style</p>

  • glenn8878

    02 July, 2019 - 10:49 am

    <p>It's time to have a program launcher with frequently used programs.</p>

    • Rob_Wade

      02 July, 2019 - 10:52 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#439152">In reply to glenn8878:</a></em></blockquote><p>Huh?</p>

    • Keith Isley

      02 July, 2019 - 11:36 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#439152">In reply to glenn8878:</a></em></blockquote><p>I think they call that a dock. </p>

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