Former design lead at Apple Jony Ive and Apple go together like umm... apples and oranges. But one source says that they'll no longer be working together.
Apple fans will remember that Jony Ive left Apple in 2019, to start his own design firm, LoveFrom. But at the time, the Cupertino giant signed a multi-year contract to work with LoveFrom. This meant that Ive's biggest client was Apple, and that he was restricted from taking on certain types of work – in short, anything that Apple found competitive. Seeing as Apple covers a fair amount of different tech, and Ive's worked on everything from the Apple Watch to the iMac, we can imagine that that ruled out a fair chunk of work.
According to The New York Times, with the contract coming up, both parties agreed not to extend it. Apparently there were qualms from within Apple about Ive's pay, and also Apple didn't like it when its designers went to join Ive's company. Plus, apparently Ive was getting annoyed by having to run his client list past Apple.
Both Apple or Ive declined to comment on the situation. With no more design insight from Ive, who famously led the team who designed the iMac, Apple aficionados will be left wondering what direction the brand will take.
If the past few years are anything to go by then we should expect Apple to continue to release more of the same types of products, with fairly minor design tweaks. Perhaps it's time the company got someone new in, ready to shake things up and bring us new laptops that aren't just variations of old laptops (we're looking at you, MacBook Pro 13 (2022). Here's hoping Apple thinks the same.
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