Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      Solly Malatsi seeks out-of-court deal in TV migration fight

      15 July 2025

      South Africa’s telcos battle to monetise 5G as 4G suffices for most

      15 July 2025

      Major new electric car brand launching in South Africa

      15 July 2025

      MTN empowerment investors see ‘modest’ return as Zakhele Futhi winds up

      15 July 2025

      Eskom wants your solar system registered – but what does that actually mean?

      15 July 2025
    • World

      Grok 4 arrives with bold claims and fresh controversy

      10 July 2025

      Samsung’s bet on folding phones faces major test

      10 July 2025

      Bitcoin pushes higher into record territory

      10 July 2025

      OpenAI to launch web browser in direct challenge to Google Chrome

      10 July 2025

      Cupertino vs Brussels: Apple challenges Big Tech crackdown

      7 July 2025
    • In-depth

      The 1940s visionary who imagined the Information Age

      14 July 2025

      MultiChoice is working on a wholesale overhaul of DStv

      10 July 2025

      Siemens is battling Big Tech for AI supremacy in factories

      24 June 2025

      The algorithm will sing now: why musicians should be worried about AI

      20 June 2025

      Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

      17 June 2025
    • TCS

      TCS+ | MVNX on the opportunities in South Africa’s booming MVNO market

      11 July 2025

      TCS | Connecting Saffas – Renier Lombard on The Lekker Network

      7 July 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E4: Takealot’s big Post Office jobs plan

      4 July 2025

      TCS | Tech, townships and tenacity: Spar’s plan to win with Spar2U

      3 July 2025

      TCS+ | First Distribution on the latest and greatest cloud technologies

      27 June 2025
    • Opinion

      A smarter approach to digital transformation in ICT distribution

      15 July 2025

      In defence of equity alternatives for BEE

      30 June 2025

      E-commerce in ICT distribution: enabler or disruptor?

      30 June 2025

      South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

      17 June 2025

      AI and the future of ICT distribution

      16 June 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CambriLearn
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SevenC
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » Electronics and hardware » Time was up for Jony Ive and Apple’s cult of design

    Time was up for Jony Ive and Apple’s cult of design

    By Shira Ovide28 June 2019
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp
    Jony Ive

    There will be stories of palace intrigue involving Jony Ive, the Apple design chief who announced Thursday that he is planning to exit the company after more than a quarter of a century. This is a simpler tale: it was time.

    Apart from Steve Jobs, the co-founder and former CEO, perhaps no person is more identified with Apple’s rise from the cusp of bankruptcy 22 years ago to one of the most admired and successful companies in the world. Ive’s place in technology’s history is assured. He helped make computers more fun, helped put millions of songs in everyone’s pocket and helped change how people interact with technology thanks to the iPhone.

    But it was time. It’s time for Ive, who had been less publicly visible and perhaps less involved as well, to move on. It’s also time for Apple and the rest of the technology sector to move past the cult of the designer that Ive represented.

    For all that changed at Apple since Tim Cook took over as CEO for Jobs in 2011, it remains Steve and Jony and Tim’s iPhone company

    The future of Apple and the technology industry will be shaped by software and other technologies that don’t have to look beautiful as Ive’s designs do. The future is computing woven into anything, and it’s not intended to be noticed or adored. It’s software and Internet-connected sensors that can warn a factory owner about a baulky production line long before it breaks down. It’s technology that can teach someone a new language more quickly by analysing the mistakes of millions of other language learners. It’s the ability for a computer to pilot a car with human-like decision-making.

    Ive was in recent years in charge of Apple’s software design as well as hardware, but software wasn’t his passion. Ive, an industrial designer, grew famous for obsessing over every smartphone curve and the precise dimensions of a desk chair. People with impeccable instincts for what is tasteful and good in physical things will still matter in the future of technology infused into everything, but they will be less supreme. They are less worthy of cult-like adoration. The future belongs to the nerds.

    Important milestone

    That makes Ive’s departure as an Apple employee an important milestone for the company and the industry, but not a consequential one. Everything right with Apple is still right. Everything wrong is still wrong.

    For the foreseeable future, Apple remains the iPhone company. For all that changed at Apple since Tim Cook took over as CEO for Jobs in 2011, it remains Steve and Jony and Tim’s iPhone company. That’s both a blessing and a curse. Few companies have changed everything with a single product. The iPhone did that, and it made Apple, founded in 1976, rich and blessed with the resources to try to stay relevant for at least another 43 years.

    Apple may still be the iPhone company, but this is less and less an iPhone world. Globally, smartphone sales have stopped growing. That’s what has changed most profoundly from prior rocky patches, notably around 2013. Apple relies on a product for which demand isn’t growing, and nothing else can possibly come close to filling that hole. Pockets of smartphone promise such as India, Nigeria and Vietnam are places where Apple has limited presence and little hope. Technology now is truly global, and Apple remains profoundly parochial.

    The iPhone has Ive’s design touch

    Citing the more than half of Apple’s revenue that comes directly from iPhone sales underplays Apple’s dependence on that singular smartphone with Ive’s handiwork. The iPhone is the sun around which Apple’s current and near-future products orbit. People are far less likely to buy Apple’s wireless headphones, Apple’s streaming video subscriptions or iPhone apps if they don’t own iPhones.

    Apple is leaning now on these non-iPhone products for growth, but it won’t change that. The “resource curse” is the shorthand for oil-rich countries that grow dependent on fossil-fuel revenue and see their development suffer. That’s Apple.

    To thrive, Apple needs to change its identity in ways that don’t come naturally

    But the future cannot be Steve and Jony and Tim’s iPhone company. To thrive, Apple needs to change its identity in ways that don’t come naturally. Apple is far from a leader in emerging areas such as driverless cars, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Can the company that brought you iTunes — a software so maligned and clunky that even an Apple executive made fun of it at a recent conference — really bring the world vehicles without drivers?

    Apple deserves kudos for carefully stage-managing the exit of Ive. When he leaves later this year, the company said Ive will head his own design firm that will have Apple as a client. Presumably sometime down the road, Ive will hang up his (very tasteful) hat for good. It’s a big moment. It also a long belated signpost of how much Apple’s hardware-obsessive heritage is becoming a relic.  — (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP



    Apple Jony Ive Steve Jobs Tim Cook top
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleDune fields like Namibia: Nasa to send spacecraft to Titan
    Next Article Airtel Africa shares slump in market debut

    Related Posts

    Mental wellness at scale: how Mac fuels October Health’s mission

    15 July 2025

    Apple plans product blitz to reignite growth

    11 July 2025

    AI gold rush propels Nvidia to record $4-trillion market cap

    9 July 2025
    Company News

    Mental wellness at scale: how Mac fuels October Health’s mission

    15 July 2025

    Banking on LEO: Q-KON transforms financial services connectivity

    14 July 2025

    The future of business calling: Voys brings your landline to the cloud

    14 July 2025
    Opinion

    A smarter approach to digital transformation in ICT distribution

    15 July 2025

    In defence of equity alternatives for BEE

    30 June 2025

    E-commerce in ICT distribution: enabler or disruptor?

    30 June 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.