The new arrangement eliminates the need for Mr. Ivey to commute frequently to the company’s Cupertino office. He went from an almost daily product review to an irregular schedule that weeks passed without thinking. Sometimes news of his unexpected arrival at the office spreads throughout the studio. Employees compared the ensuing moments to old footage of the 1920s stock market crash with documents being thrown into the air, and people scurrying around for his arrival.
As Wall Street’s anticipation grew for the 10th-anniversary iPhone in early 2017, Ive summoned the company’s top software designers to San Francisco for a product review. A team of about 20 people arrived at The Battery, the city’s exclusive social club, and began distributing 11-by-17-inch prints of the design concept in the club’s penthouse. They needed Mr. Ivey’s approval for several features of the first full-screen iPhone.
They waited nearly three hours for Mr. Ivey that day. When he finally arrived, he didn’t apologize. He reviewed their printouts and provided feedback.Then he left without making a final decision. With their work at a standstill, many wonder, what’s going on?
In Mr. Ivey’s absence, Mr. Cook began to reshape the company in his own image. He replaced outgoing company director Mickey Drexler with former Boeing treasurer James Bell, the gifted marketer who founded Gap and J. Crew. Mr. Ivey was angry that a left-brained executive had replaced one of the few right-brained leaders on the board. “He’s another of those accountants,” he complained to a colleague.
Mr Cook also encouraged the company’s finance department, which began auditing outside contractors. At one point, the department rejected a legitimate bill submitted by Foster + Partners, the construction firm that worked closely with Mr. Ive to complete the company’s new $5 billion campus, Apple Park.
Amid those struggles, Mr. Cook began to expand Apple’s strategy to sell more services. During a company retreat in 2017, when a newcomer to Apple named Peter Stern walked up to the company’s top leadership, Mr. Ivey stepped out for some fresh air. Mr. Stern clicked on a slideshow of an X-shaped chart showing Apple’s margins on sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs falling, while margins on sales of its software and services such as iCloud storage rose.
The speech shocked some in the audience. It paints a picture of a future where Mr. Ivey — and the company’s business as a product maker — will become less important, and Mr. Cook’s growing emphasis on services like Apple Music and iCloud will become more important.