For those of you who haven't heard, yesterday Jony Ive was promoted to Chief Design Officer at Apple. While that may seem like a good thing, the Applesphere and Techsphere are freaking out. There is a pending doom in the air, Jony Ive is leaving the company. Hmmmm. It looks as though he is being promoted, not leaving.
One of the biggest cries come in the title. The one that is bantering around the most is his lack of ego and no need for a title. While this may be true of himself, there are people under him that deserve a jump in title. I believe this allows his lieutenants to get the title recognition they have deserved for quite awhile.
Jony has the same aura as Steve did. There is this belief that Steve had his hands in every minute decision and he was the mastermind behind all the tech that Apple had created since his return. That could not be further from the truth. Steve was brilliant at getting teams to focus, make things simpler, which is a form of design. Jony falls under the same category. He does not design everything that comes out of Apple, he leads the team that does it. While I am not trying to minimizing his role with that statement, I am trying to emphasize that his team designs and comes up with the concepts as well. Jony has the final say, which nothing changes under the new arrangement.
Apple is a very large company with many brilliant people who dedicate an inordinate amount of effort to produce the products we love. It is more than just 1 or 2 people that make Apple what it is. There is an entire ecosystem of brilliance which is lead by very smart people. Apple has always been about focus, which is how they also operate with public figures. This is the coming out for 2 strong individuals at Apple.
Even though I don't know them personally, Richard Howarth and Alan Dye deserve these positions, which I'm sure they have already been doing for quite some time. The one thing you don't want as an Apple follower is for Jony to burn out, which it seems he was on his way to doing. This allows Jony the freedom to take a break, and dare I say, travel and decompress a little more than he has been allowed to since Steve's passing. The day-to-day will be just fine without Jony there. He will be there plenty to guide the teams, which is what a leader should be doing. Everyone needs to chilax.