It’s exhausting sufficient to search for a superb 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 once you’re searching for a product designer that will help you in an trade that, in some ways, is simply within the strategy of forming, the best way synthetic intelligence is in the intervening time?
The place do you go when the whole trade—from the {hardware} to the software program to even how you 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 have been a part of your biggest successes. It is almost certainly why Ive, together with OpenAI’s Sam Altman, have requested Tang Tan, Apple’s chief product designer, to hitch them to “work on a brand new synthetic intelligence {hardware} venture, aiming to create units with the newest capabilities,” in keeping with a narrative in Bloomberg, earlier this week. Ive has additionally requested Tan to hitch 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 essential product designs, together with the introduction of the iMac in 1998, but in addition 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 just lately, Apple has misplaced fairly plenty of essential executives and design leaders. For instance, there was information just lately that Steve Hotelling, an influential government and inventor at Apple, had determined to retire.
However in keeping with the Bloomberg story, there have been fairly just a few different designers and executives which have left just lately, together with Evans Hankey, Patrick Coffman, Colin Burns, and Shota Aoyagi. The story additionally stated that “greater than 20 former Apple workers have joined” Ive’s LoveFrom, together with Aoyagi.
In fact, few present Apple executives will talk about the existence of “mind drain.” In one other current 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 talk about authorized points, however did say that, “…we actually care about IP safety. When sure individuals depart for sure causes, that is their selection. That is high-quality. And once more, as I discussed, we have now hundreds of engineers and we have now a deep bench of expertise.”
So, though Srouji and different Apple executives might keep away from acknowledging “mind drain,” it’s going to be fascinating 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 stage of ingenuity, high quality, and recognition.
