I never thought I’d write this, but…
Jony Ive is Leaving Apple, And I’m Kind of Glad He Is
All eras must come to an end. Even the beautiful ones.
So Jony Ive is finally leaving Apple. The end of an era, to say the least. A final farewell to the Apple that brought us the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and Apple Watch. And I think it was high time.
“nothing passed by him without being scrutinized”
I’ve always held Jony Ive in high regards for his intense passion and expertise when it comes to product design. We can’t know for sure what design details came from him and what came from his colleagues in the Apple design team. But we can most definitely rely on the fact that nothing passed by him without being scrutinized. So how can it be a good thing that he is leaving?
Jony Ive Leaving Was an Inevitability
Ive has been working at Apple for almost three decades. His departure has been an ongoing rumor for years, and it was inevitable. We should be glad that he didn’t quit when he first considered it back in 1996. Instead, he stuck around to help improve and revolutionize how mp3 players, smartphones, tablets, and wearables look and work. That’s no small feat.
His departure was inevitable. There’s only so much you can do after a track record like that, especially when Apple as a company is seemingly no longer pushing as hard into the unknown as it did in the past. The focus nowadays is more on incremental iterations of existing designs and products. That kind of work is not something a person of Ive’s caliber and experience is searching for.
Positive in More Ways Than One
Jony Ive leaving for greener pasture leads to two things. It forces Apple to fill the void created, hopefully giving one or several other Apple designers a chance to bring their best work to fruition. All Apple needs to do is foster the design part of their DNA, and not get trapped in trying to be what every other product-focused company is doing.
“The world is his oyster, and Jony is hungrier than ever before”
And it gives Ive a chance to work on something that isn’t Apple. And I cannot even begin to imagine what else he already has had time to think up over the last few years. The world is his oyster, and Jony is hungrier than ever before.
This Isn’t News to Apple
We already saw the seeds of this being planted back in 2013 when Ive and Newson teamed up to design a Leica among other things for Project [RED]. A way to breathe some fresh air of sorts for Ive I can only imagine. This can’t come as a shock to Apple. And with them being the first client of Ive’s and Newson’s new design firm, the transition is set up to be as smooth as it can be for such a paradigm shift.
I’ll be honest — it saddened me learning that Jony Ive was leaving Apple. It is the end of an era and what a beautiful era it’s been. But it had to happen sooner or later, and I look forward to seeing what Jony Ive can conjure up out in the wild after all these years. Time to start saving up for it, I guess.
While on the subject, I recommend this article by Daniel Rakhamimov that describes a hint of what makes Jonathan Ive one of the best designers in the world:
