Former Apple design chief Jony Ive is no longer doing consulting work for the company
It’s truly the end of an era, and worth taking a moment to comment on.
The man most responsible for taking Apple from the brink of bankruptcy in the late 90’s to the business, technological, and cultural juggernaut it’s become over the last two decades is Steve Jobs. No question. But the runner up in that category is arguably Jony Ive, Apple’s chief designer for over two decades. Ive left Apple in 2019, but his consulting firm has been working with Apple in some capacity since then. No more. Here’s a snippet from The New York Times (cribbed from John Gruber’s post since I don’t have a NYT account):
Mr. Ive and Apple have agreed to stop working together, according to two people with knowledge of their contractual agreement, ending a three-decade run during which the designer helped define every rounded corner of an iPhone and guided development of its only new product category in recent years, the Apple Watch.
When Mr. Ive left Apple in 2019 to start his own design firm, LoveFrom, the iPhone maker signed a multiyear contract with him valued at more than $100 million. That made Apple his firm’s primary client, people with knowledge of the agreement said.
The deal restricted Mr. Ive from taking on work that Apple found competitive and ensured that the designer would inform the development of future products, such as an augmented-reality headset that it is expected to ship next year, the people said.
In recent weeks, with the contract coming up for renewal, the parties agreed not to extend it. Some Apple executives had questioned how much the company was paying Mr. Ive and had grown frustrated after several of its designers left to join Mr. Ive’s firm. And Mr. Ive wanted the freedom to take on clients without needing Apple’s clearance, these people said.
In the last several years, Jony Ive became a bit of a punching bag for the corporate tech press. Anything perceived to be a failing on Apple’s part? Jony’s fault. The thing he was most often criticized for was being so hyper-focused on product thinness, that usability suffered. When Apple debuted the chonkier 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro last Fall, the narrative was that this could have only happened because someone other than Jony Ive was in charge of design now.
It’s possible those things are true, but it’s mostly speculation coming from people who didn’t like some of Apple’s product decisions and were looking for someone to put the blame on. The reality is we really don’t know all of the reasons behind the specific design compromises Apple made during Ive’s tenure. Also, given that he’s been doing some level of consulting work for Apple since his departure, we don’t know that he disapproved of the MacBook Pro’s current design. He may even have helped contribute directly to it.
What is indisputable is that Apple released iconic designs in multiple product categories under Ive’s leadership. The original iMac. The iMac G4, the iPod, the iPhone, Apple Watch, and the list goes on and on. The design for the original iMac was so iconic that during that era every product under the sun from staplers to grills came in the same colorful clear plastics.
I don’t think this official separation between Ive and Apple is something to fret about though. His influence will be felt in Apple’s product designs for years to come. Whether or not he directly contributed to the design of the new MacBook Pro, it certainly bears the signs of his design language. I’ll be interested to see what Apple does going forward, particularly given that Jony Ive can no longer be blamed for any perceived missteps. I’m also very interested to see what a man of his brilliance does next.
Whatever you think of Apple’s most divisive product designs of the last several years, Jony Ive is a person whose work and design philosophy will be studied by students for years to come. Much like Dieter Rams, one of Ive’s biggest influences, Jony Ive’s work will live on well beyond his lifetime.
Not everyone loves/d Rams work either. Geniuses are, by definition, polarizing, as people either see the genius or refute it. Ive had his misses (butterfly keyboard, I’m looking at you) but his overall body of work was unprecedented and revolutionary. Sometimes it giveth, sometimes it taketh away. It’s not possible to overstate what Steve’s illness and death took from Jony, and we will sadly never know what more would have been possible had he still had access to a man who carried a jeweler’s loupe to look at pixel-level details to balance him out.
Like Lennon needed McCartney, Ive needed Jobs.