It’s arduous sufficient to search for a wonderful product designer in an trade that’s been round for many years—say a artistic who makes designs for a automobile or a espresso maker. However the place do you go if you’re on the lookout for a product designer that will help you in an trade that, in some ways, is simply within the technique of forming, the best way synthetic intelligence is for the time being?
The place do you go when the whole trade—from the {hardware} to the software program to even how one can legally use AI—is all very a lot in flux? Whom do you rent?
For iconic designer and former Apple design chief, Jony Ive, you rent those that had been a part of your biggest successes. It is most certainly why Ive, together with OpenAI’s Sam Altman, have requested Tang Tan, Apple’s chief product designer, to affix them to “work on a brand new synthetic intelligence {hardware} venture, aiming to create units with the most recent capabilities,” in keeping with a narrative in Bloomberg, earlier this week. Ive has additionally requested Tan to affix his design agency, LoveFrom, the place Tan will lead the {hardware} engineering crew on the venture.
John Ive, who labored at Apple as senior vice chairman of commercial design for 22 years and left in 2019, was an important determine behind lots of Apple’s most spectacular and vital product designs, together with the introduction of the iMac in 1998, but additionally the iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and Apple Watch, amongst others.
Can Apple afford to lose extra iconic designers?
Tan’s exit has been seen by many within the tech world as a continuation of the “mind drain” that Apple has been coping with since Ive’s departure in 2019.
In years previous, Apple was capable of retain the expertise of its designers, alongside investing in budding creatives, which allowed it to get better-designed expertise. However extra not too long ago, Apple has misplaced fairly a variety of vital executives and design leaders. For instance, there was information not too long ago that Steve Hotelling, an influential govt and inventor at Apple, had determined to retire.
However in keeping with the Bloomberg story, there have been fairly a couple of different designers and executives which have left not too long ago, together with Evans Hankey, Patrick Coffman, Colin Burns, and Shota Aoyagi. The story additionally stated that “greater than 20 former Apple staff have joined” Ive’s LoveFrom, together with Aoyagi.
In fact, few present Apple executives will focus on the existence of “mind drain.” In one other latest story, this one from CNBC, reporter Katie Tarasov requested Johny Srouji, senior vice chairman of {hardware} applied sciences for Apple, about Gerard Williams and Apple’s lawsuit in opposition to him, which the firm dropped earlier this yr, in addition to the existence of “mind drain.” Srouji stated he couldn’t discuss authorized points, however did say that, “…we actually care about IP safety. When sure folks depart for sure causes, that is their selection. That is high-quality. And once more, as I discussed, we’ve got 1000’s of engineers and we’ve got a deep bench of expertise.”
So, though Srouji and different Apple executives could keep away from acknowledging “mind drain,” it will be attention-grabbing to see if that deep bench of expertise can successfully step into these vacant product design management roles in 2024 and produce merchandise with the identical degree of ingenuity, high quality, and recognition.
