What Jony Ive's Promotion Means at Apple
Apple's design genius is stepping into a newly created role.
— -- Jony Ive was already the most prominent design visionary at Apple and now the London-born designer, who has the honor of having a sir before his name, is stepping into the newly created position of chief design officer.
The move will allow Ive to focus his energy on current design projects and future initiatives, according to a profile in The Telegraph.
Ive has made his mark at Apple as a design genius, who has created and executed the clean, sleek look and feel of Apple's products since he took on his design role in 1996.
"If you think about what distinguishes Apple it is design. Without argument, Jony Ive has made a big impression on Apple," Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy told ABC News. "I think this move is to lets have Jony stay at Apple for the longer term [because] he could go on his own and create a billion dollar design company if he wanted to."
Two of Ive's deputies will step in beginning July 1 to take over some of his daily responsibilities, according to a memo obtained by 9to5Mac. Richard Howarth will serve as vice president of industrial design while Alan Dye will take on the role of vice president of user interface desig
Ive told the newspaper the promotion "frees me up from some of the administrative and management work," adding that "those two are as good as it gets. Richard was lead on the iPhone from the start. He saw it all the way through from prototypes to the first model we released. Alan has a genius for human interface design. So much of the Apple Watch's operating system came from him."
Moorhead said the promotions are a huge win for Apple as the world's most valuable company continues to push forward with arguably the most talented design team in the world.
"Not only is Apple locking him in but giving people underneath him, who work for him, an opportunity to grow and take on more responsibility," Moorhead said. "That's a good thing."