Apple Inc chief design officer Jony Ive is leaving after decades at the iPhone maker to form an independent company — with Apple as one of its primary clients.
Ive is responsible for the look of the company’s most iconic products.
LoveFrom, his new firm, would continue to work with Apple on projects, he said in an interview with the Financial Times on Thursday.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Apple will continue to benefit from Jony’s talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built,” Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook said in a statement.
Apple shares slipped less than 1 percent in extended trading on Thursday. The stock closed at US$199.74 in New York.
“Ive is leaving a hole in the company and is clearly irreplaceable as he has been one of the most important figures at Apple throughout the past few decades,” Wedbush Securities Inc analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to analysts.
“While this is a bit if a shocker to Apple and its investors, we are not overly concerned, as Ive will continue to work closely with Cook & Co,” Ives said.
Ive started leading Apple’s design team in 1996, before Apple cofounder Steve Jobs returned to the company, as it was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Over the past two decades, Ive’s designs, from the original iMac desktop computer in 1998 to the first iPod in 2001 and the iPad in 2010, have been a significant factor in Apple’s growth.
In 2012, a year after becoming CEO, Cook put Ive in charge of software design as well.
Ive is to be replaced by existing Apple designers.
Evans Hankey, vice president of industrial design, and Alan Dye, vice president of human interface design, are to report to Apple chief operating officer Jeff Williams, the company said.
Dye and Hankey have played key leadership roles on Apple’s design team for many years. They were among executives who took over day-to-day management of the team when Ive stepped away to focus on the creation of company’s new headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Williams has led the development of Apple Watch since its inception and is to spend more of his time working with the design team in their studio, the company added.
Separately, Apple said that Sabih Khan, a 24-year company veteran, would be senior vice president of operations.
In the past few years, Khan has inherited more responsibility for global supply chain operations that churn out hundreds of millions of devices per year — tasks once handled by Williams.
Khan runs day-to-day manufacturing of the iPhone, as well as other devices, and his team has become involved increasingly early in the design process.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last