Report describing Jony Ive’s Apple exit good points a pointy response from Tim Cook dinner

Enlarge / Jony Ive speaks onstage throughout the 2017 New Yorker TechFest in New York Metropolis.

Yesterday, The Wall Road Journal revealed a report describing the years and occasions main as much as design chief Jony Ive’s lately introduced departure. Amongst different issues, it claimed Ive had turn out to be more and more disengaged from the corporate and its design groups after Steve Jobs’ demise, partially due to his frustration with a brand new, rising Apple management that centered extra on operations than design.

Within the wake of that report, Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner—who had allegedly annoyed Ive along with his lack of curiosity in product design, the story’s sources claimed—emailed NBC Information and MSNBC Senior Media Reporter Dylan Byers calling the story “absurd.” Cook dinner mentioned its “conclusions simply do not match with actuality” and claimed that it “distorts” the occasions described. Byers then claimed on Twitter Wall Road Journal spokesperson advised him “the paper stands by its report.”

The story “relies on conversations over greater than a 12 months with individuals who labored with Mr. Ive, in addition to folks near Apple’s management,” the Journal says. It claims that Ive clashed with different members of the corporate’s management over the positioning of the Apple Watch, which he noticed as a fashion-focused product. In the meantime, unnamed leaders noticed it as an extension of the iPhone, they usually got here to really feel that the corporate had misplaced its centered on design as key senior roles have been stacked with operations and business-focused personnel.

In accordance with the report, Ive was promoted in 2015 to Chief Design Officer not simply to acknowledge his expanded oversight for not simply however software program, retail, and extra, but additionally as a technique to enable him to take extra time to work at home to have house from the corporate to assume after a irritating 12 months that noticed the Watch, a product he was closely invested in, fail to fulfill preliminary expectations out there. The Journal’s sources declare Ive generally failed to indicate up for conferences, and appeared disengaged in some that he did attend, dispiriting the design staff that admired him.

Ive was given a extra concerned function once more in 2017, the piece says, however he once more turned much less engaged over time, no less than partially as a result of he was touring incessantly to the UK to spend time along with his ailing father.

Titled “Jony Ive Is Leaving Apple, however His Departure Began Lengthy In the past,” the article attracts all this collectively to color an image of an organization struggling to introduce new merchandise due to the present management’s emphasis on operational and engineering issues over design ones—supporting many observers’ theories concerning the firm’s struggles to adapt to a post-Steve Jobs actuality.

Cook dinner’s response

Right here is Cook dinner’s emailed response, quoted from a tweet by Byers:

Hello Dylan,

Hope you might be nicely.

The story is absurd. Quite a lot of the reporting, and definitely the conclusions, simply do not match actuality. At a base degree, it reveals a lack of knowledge about how the design staff works and the way Apple works. It distorts relationships, selections, and occasions to the purpose that we simply do not acknowledge the corporate it claims to explain.

The design staff is exceptionally proficient. As Jony mentioned, they’re stronger than ever, and I’ve full confidence that they may thrive underneath Jeff, Evans, and Alan’s management. We all know the reality, and we all know the unbelievable issues they’re able to doing. The initiatives they’re engaged on will blow you away.

Finest,
Tim

Whereas strongly worded, the e-mail doesn’t make clear precisely what concerning the story Cook dinner believes to be absurd, out of contact with actuality, or distorted—a technique which casts doubt on the report whereas making it tough to productively assess the rebuttal.

On that time, Byers tweeted:

He was quick on specifics. However my impression was that he took concern with insinuation that he does not care about design, or that design has been sacrificed for operations, and that there was distance between him and Jony Ive.

Apple’s present management does have a really totally different focus than the corporate as soon as had. Within the wake of slowing iPhone gross sales, Apple has begun to emphasise methods of monetizing customers over the long term by providing what it hopes can be precious companies and content material moderately than leaning completely on excessive margins and volumes for gross sales to maintain returns to buyers robust.

Whether or not that may have been the appropriate emphasis for Apple, its shareholders, and its customers in the long term stays to be seen. Within the meantime, Ive’s new design agency will rely Apple as a buyer in 2020 after the transition concludes. So he has not but fully parted methods with the corporate.