News of Apple staff defecting is starting to feel like a daily occurrence – at least from the company's AI flailing division, which has seen several team members poached by Meta. But now a potentially more damning trend is emerging; departing designers.
Last month we brought you the news that Abidur Chowdhury, the designer who introduced the iPhone Air had left Apple to work for an AI company. And now, the design executive behind Liquid Glass has reportedly gone too.
According to CNBC, Apple’s head of user interface design, Alan Dye, is leaving the company and will reportedly join—you guessed it—Meta.
"Today we're establishing a new creative studio in Reality Labs led by Alan Dye, who has spent nearly 20 years leading design at Apple," Meta's Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on Threads. "The new studio will bring together design, fashion, and technology to define the next generation of our products and experiences."
While staff getting poached by rival tech companies is nothing new, it's notable that the designers behind two of Apple's boldest and most divisive design gambits have moved on so quickly.
Liquid Glass remains one of the most talked-about UI developments in years, for better and worse. And the compromises of the iPhone Air have proven too much for many buyers to stomach. But while Apple normally sticks by its design choices (sometimes even calling them "courageous", as it did with the removal of the headphone jack on the iPhone 7), these departures aren't doing much to imply confidence.
From its advertising to its products, there's been a growing chorus of voices suggesting Apple is losing its creative flair. The company is still making bold choices, but just like Jaguar, it doesn't seem to be showing conviction in them.
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