Disagreements regarding the launch of theAppleWatch in 2014 would have been the trigger for Jony Ive’s departure, which took place a few years later.
If Steve Jobs was regularly hailed as the great savior of Apple after his return in 1997, Jony Ive is also the other creative who allowed the brand to find the way to success.
A star designer who enjoyed total freedom
The designer’s work caught the eye of Steve Jobs and the two men created their first product together, the iMac, a computer with a colored and transparent shell that was to mark its era. Then follow the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad or the MacBook Air, so many products that will only strengthen the power of creativity in the organization chart of Apple.
The first years after the death of Steve Jobs in 2011 did not change much and Jony Ive kept the keys to the design studio during the Tim Cook era. Better still, he was going to be at the initiative of a whole new category of products for the manufacturer with the Apple Watch connected watch.
From the overall concept to the smallest details, Jony Ive wanted to make the Apple Watch his baby and put his love of luxury watchmaking and fashion at the heart of the product. Only, Tim Cook and his teams did not seem on the same wavelength, according to After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost its Soula book dedicated to the brand to be published soon in the United States.
Internally criticized Jony Ive felt the company would change drastically under the Tim Cook era
For the presentation of the Apple Watch, Jony Ive would have, according to the author of the book Tripp Mickle, had delusions of grandeur and would have liked a major event that would mark the minds, and in particular those of fashion magazines who could appreciate the care given to the materials and the different bracelets.
The place chosen by Apple was the same one where Steve Jobs had presented the Macintosh in 1984 but Ive wanted to place a large tent there and to do so, to remove two dozen trees. Total cost of the operation: 25 million dollars.
The marketing teams opposed this event to offer a simpler presentation of the product, and more focused on its sports and communication functions. Tim Cook decided in favor of its star designer but the episode left its mark.
Jony Ive felt that Tim Cook, more accountant than product man, was going to change the corporate culture and that there would no longer be enough room for him to innovate or take risks. For the first time, he was disapproved of by the management teams when he enjoyed the absolute and unquestionable support of Steve Jobs a few years earlier.
In 2019, Jony Ive left Apple and founded his own design studio, LoveFrom, which nevertheless continues to work with the manufacturer on a few projects. At the same time, Apple reversed several decisions made by Jony Ive and notably reinstated ports on its 14-inch MacBook Pro or removed the butterfly keyboard which caused a lot of inconvenience to its users.
Source : The New York Times
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