“After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul”. Jony Ive leaves Apple amid tensions with Tim Cook

Tripp Mickle, a reporter who recently moved from The Wall Street Journal to The New York Times, is releasing a new book about Apple this week titled After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul .

In this book, among other things, he talks about the tension between the new chief executive of Apple, Tim Cook, and the chief designer of the company, Jony Ive, which ultimately led to the latter’s departure from Apple.

The focus of this book is on the Apple Watch. Ive wanted to make it a fashion accessory first, but Apple marketers questioned the associated costs and focus on fashion, preferring the more traditional direction of focusing on the capabilities of the Apple Watch.

And although Tim Cook eventually supported Quince’s idea, sources cited in the book by the journalist say that this was the end of Quince at Apple.

To many present, Mr. Cook’s approval seemed like a victory for Mr. Quince. But later the designer realized that this was a Pyrrhic victory. He told colleagues that the debate over the Apple Watch launch event and the larger battle over watch marketing were some of the first times he sensed a lack of support within Apple.

As the Apple Watch evolved into a fitness-focused device and demand grew, Quince reportedly grew frustrated with the company’s “growth of operating leaders” and growing focus on services over hardware, and eventually he left Apple and founded his own design firm, Lovefrom.

Without Jobs, he took on most of the responsibility for product design and marketing. People close to Ive said he found it tiring to deal with colleagues over promotions and was overwhelmed by work with a staff that numbered in the hundreds, many times the size of the 20-person design team he led for many years. years

As a result, Cook and Ive agreed to a new role as chief designer at the company, in which he would take over the day-to-day management of the design team and move to a part-time position, focusing on spot work.

Quince’s involvement waned, and he was reported to often go weeks at a time with no appreciation of the work going on in the team. The report includes a story about the iPhone X development process, when Ive called an important product evaluation meeting, which he missed by almost three hours and ended up ending it without making any final decisions.

Few knew the extent of Mr. Quince’s battles. Few people knew about his clash with Apple’s financial team. Few realized how exhausting it was for him to struggle to market the watch, a product that increased sales over time and became the backbone of the company’s $38 billion wearables business.