Chief Design Officer

Drei von 5000 Designs von Jony Ive für Apple: iPhone 6, Newton und die Ein-Tasten-Puck-Maus vom iMac

Promotion. Jonathan Ive wird bei Apple befördert. Als sogenannter Chief Design Officer bleibt Ive für das Design verantwortlich, gibt jedoch das Tagesgeschäft zum 1. Juli 2015 komplett ab an Richard Horwath und Alan Dye. Horwath übernimmt als Head of Industrial Design den Bereich Hardware, Dye die Software.

Dem Interview bei telegraph.co.uk zufolge soll Ive mehr Zeit für Reisen und Gestaltungsrichtlinien erhalten. In der internen Apple-Hauspost verkündet Tim Cook die Botschaft:

Team,

I have exciting news to share with you today. I am happy to announce that Jony Ive is being promoted to the newly created position of Chief Design Officer at Apple.

Jony is one of the most talented and accomplished designers of his generation, with an astonishing 5000 design and utility patents to his name. His new role is a reflection of the scope of work he has been doing at Apple for some time. Jony’s design responsibilities have expanded from hardware and, more recently, software UI to the look and feel of Apple retail stores, our new campus in Cupertino, product packaging and many other parts of our company.

Design is one of the most important ways we communicate with our customers, and our reputation for world-class design differentiates Apple from every other company in the world. As Chief Design Officer, Jony will remain responsible for all of our design, focusing entirely on current design projects, new ideas and future initiatives. On July 1, he will hand off his day-to-day managerial responsibilities of ID and UI to Richard Howarth, our new vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, our new vice president of User Interface Design.

Richard, Alan and Jony have been working together as colleagues and friends for many years. Richard has been a member of the Design team for two decades, and in that time he has been a key contributor to the design of each generation of iPhone, Mac, and practically every other Apple product. Alan started at Apple nine years ago on the Marcom team, and helped Jony build the UI team which collaborated with ID, Software Engineering and countless other groups on groundbreaking projects like iOS 7, iOS 8 and Apple Watch.

Please join me in congratulating these three exceptionally talented designers on their new roles at Apple.

Tim

Entscheidend ist der zweite Absatz: Seine Beförderung ist Belohnung für vergangene Aufgaben. Denn in großen Unternehmen wird man so lange befördert, bis man die höchste Stufe erreicht hat. Auf dieser kann der Mitarbeiter keinen Schaden mehr anrichten. Das nennt sich das Peter-Prinzip.