Sir Jony Ive receiving his knighthood in May 2012. According to reports, Apple's industrial design... [+]
The tech world is abuzz with Apple's announcement that it's saying goodbye to mobile software chief Scott Forstall. But behind that is even weightier news. Jonathan Ive, till now the company's senior vice president for design, will also take on a greater role in the interplay between software and hardware at Apple, potentially filling in some of the vacuum left by Forstall.
We know this because amid Forstall's departure, a key quote in Apple's announcement is doing the rounds:
"Jony Ive will provide leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) across the company in addition to his role as the leader of Industrial Design. His incredible design aesthetic has been the driving force behind the look and feel of Apple’s products for more than a decade."
This essentially means that Ive has been promoted to a bigger role at Apple, prompting Time to herald a "real Jony Ive era" and John Gruber at Daring Fireball to point out "how big a deal it is that he now oversees all product design, hardware and software." Forbes contributor Eric Jackson says that Forstall will advise Apple for at least another year, keeping him from jumping to the likes of Google or Samsung.
So the next 12 months or so will be an opportunity for Ive, the man for years seen as No. 2 behind Steve Jobs, to shine.
You wouldn't have thought this back in February 2012, though. At that time, a report in Britain's Sunday Times said Ive, 45, was on the cusp of a three-year pay deal that would allow him to cash in on £25 million in shares, and he was in the meantime keen to relocate to his native Britain.
According to the Times, he wanted his sons to go to school in the U.K., and the idea seemed to be that he would engage in a rather exhausting trans-Atlantic commute, and not leave Apple entirely. Apple's board apparently didn't like the relocation idea. The paper quoted a family friend as saying that Apple had "told him in no uncertain terms that if he headed back to England he would not be able to sustain his position with them."
Apple never commented on the story and the facts remained hazy even in May, when Ive came back to Britain to receive a knighthood. But just a few months later in September 2012, Ive finally put the rumors of an overseas move to rest: he bought a $17 million house in San Francisco.
The house is located in the city's exclusive "Gold Coast" neighbourhood and reportedly has six bedrooms, including one featuring "cathedral ceilings with exposed beams." Seems like a good enough place to call home for a while.
It is hard to imagine Ive comfortably taking a bigger role of directing "human interface" at Apple if he had based himself in a timezone eight hours ahead of Cupertino, earlier this year. So somewhere between February and September 2012, it's possible that Tim Cook convinced Ive that it was best for him to stay close to HQ. Plenty of Apple's fans and observers would say this is a good thing.
Till now the company has given its software and hardware offerings a seamless integration, so Ive's new role will probably see him change little there. But expect some changes in the design features of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS. This could include a move away from skeuomorphism, which refers to rendering virtual objects to look like real ones. eg. book shelf icons with stylised grains to look like wood, and the lined, yellow background of iOS's "Notes" app to look like real note-paper.
Ive reportedly hated this approach, preferring more simple design aesthetics, while Forstall pushed for it and (till now) got his way. According to Fortune, relations between Forstall and Ive had been souring to the point where the two wouldn't sit in the same meeting room together. Other reports state the Forstall was sacked because he would not sign an official apology from Apple about the performance of its new Apple Maps application, which Forstall was behind.
Whatever the inside details, it looked for a while like Ive might take a lighter role at Apple, and that has now completely changed.
