Stephen Fry ha chiaccherato con Ive, sulla promozione a Chief Design Officer — un nuovo ruolo ad Apple, appositamente creato:
When I catch up with Ive alone, I ask him why he has seemingly relinquished the two departments that had been so successfully under his control. “Well, I’m still in charge of both,” he says, “I am called Chief Design Officer. Having Alan and Richard in place frees me up from some of the administrative and management work which isn’t … which isn’t …”
“Which isn’t what you were put on this planet to do?”
“Exactly. 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. With those two in place I can …”
I could feel him avoiding the phrase “blue sky thinking”… think more freely?”
“Yes!”
Secondo Ben Thompson è l’inizio del distacco di Ive da Apple. Abbandonare una posizione di management giornaliero per “pensare più liberamente” è un indizio; ammettere di volere “viaggiare di più” è un altro. Questo articolo, così come quello apparso a Febbraio sul New Yorker e quello più recente dell’Aprile scorso su Wired, serve anche ad introdurre e familiarizarci con le due persone che (fra due anni?) potrebbero sostituirlo, Alan Dye e Richard Howarth.
Il momento non potrebbe essere più opportuno, a Apple Watch appena uscito è probabile che almeno per i prossimi due anni non ci sia alcun grosso prodotto in vista per Apple. Secondo Thompson, Apple sta pianificando l’uscita di Ive da tempo, e la sta orchestrando in modo da evitare i fiumi di articoli (sull’imminente fallimento) che in molti scrissero quando Tim Cook prese il posto di Steve Jobs.
Scrive Joe Cieplinski (che è dello stesso parere di Ben):
A person such as Jony Ive can’t just retire from Apple one day. He or she must transition, over the course of a year or more, so as to cushion the impact on the stock price, public perception, etc.
Start by making it look like a “promotion.” Then spend the next several months talking up the accomplishments of his replacements. (I wouldn’t be surprised if we started seeing Howarth and Dye featured in upcoming design videos and/or appearing on stage at Apple keynotes.)