“Now that Steve Jobs is dead, what happens to Apple?” was the multibillion-dollar question asked in 2011 by Wall Street, Apple fans and company employees.
More than a decade since Apple’s co-founder died, the Cupertino company is doing better than ever, but a new book New York Times Tripp Mikel calls after steve Talk about how Apple became a trillion-dollar company and lost its soul. One of the reasons was Jony Ive leaving the company.
In an article published in the newspaper today, Meeker adapted a portion of his book and talked about Jony Ive’s final years at the company.
It was 2014, and Apple’s future seemed more dependent on Mr. Ive than ever. His love of pure, simple lines has redrawn the world with popular products like the iMac, iPod and iPhone. Now he sits at a conference table with company CEO Tim Cook (…). They both want to do it again, but Mr. Ivey is pushing for a more daring product presentation than any in the theater company’s history.
Jony Ive envisions the future of the Apple Watch as luxury. Not only did he want to build a $25 million luxury white tent to advertise the first watch, but he “thought Vogue acclaim was more important than any tech critic’s opinion.” According to Mickle, “The tent was essential for making events feel like high-end. Being as glamorous as a fashion show is crucial.”
Ultimately, Apple CEO Tim Cook embraced Ive’s idea, though the designers later rewrote it as “a victory at a price.”
He would tell colleagues that the debate over the incident and the larger battle over watch marketing was one of his first moments at Apple when he felt unsupported.
The Apple Watch has been known to transform from a fashion product to a fitness product over time.
Job Posting: The Different Visions of Jony Ive and Tim Cook
Tim Cook was very careful about losing Joni Ive after Steve Jobs died. Three years later, in 2014, “former company executives estimated that Ive’s departure would wipe out more than $50 billion, or as much as 10 percent, of Apple’s market value,” which is why Cook decided to adopt Ive’s ideas.
In another part of the article, Tripp Mickle recounts how Jony Ive’s role as design lead allowed him to “manage hundreds of employees, a multiple of the 20-person design team he’s run over the years”:
Amid these changes, Mr. Jonny Ive approached Mr. Cook and told him he was tired and wanted to quit the business. Without Jobs, he took on most of the responsibility for product design and marketing. People close to Ive say he finds him exhausted battling colleagues for promotions and overwhelmed by managing hundreds of employees, multiples of the 20-person design team he has managed over the years.
Mr. Cook worries that Mr. Jony Ive’s departure will cause investors to sell shares. To avoid this, he and Mr. Ive made an agreement to let the designers give up their day-to-day management duties and focus on new product development. He will work part-time. The company gave him the title of chief design officer and promoted two of his lieutenants. Only a few inside Apple knew the truth: Mr. Ivey was frustrated and exhausted.
The story goes beyond that episode to look at the tenth anniversary of the iPhone — the latest from Jony Ive with the Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR — and how the movie was shown yesterday inspired him.
“Art needs the right space and support to grow,” he said, according to those present that night. “It’s especially important when you’re really big.”
You can read the full New York Times article on Jony Ive’s departure here. One of Mickle’s colleagues also reviewed his book, which you can read here.
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