Mark Gurman, with blockbuster news at Bloomberg:
Meta Platforms Inc. has poached Apple Inc.’s most prominent design
executive in a major coup that underscores a push by the social
networking giant into AI-equipped consumer devices.The company is hiring Alan Dye, who has served as the head of
Apple’s user interface design team since 2015, according to people
with knowledge of the matter. Apple is replacing Dye with longtime
designer Stephen Lemay, according to the people, who asked not to
be identified because the personnel changes haven’t been
announced.Apple confirmed the move in a statement provided to
Bloomberg News.“Steve Lemay has played a key role in the design of every major
Apple interface since 1999,” Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said
in the statement. “He has always set an extraordinarily high bar
for excellence and embodies Apple’s culture of collaboration and
creativity.”
It sounds like Dye chose to jump ship, and wasn’t squeezed out (as it seems with former AI chief John Giannandrea earlier this week). Gurman/Bloomberg are spinning this like a coup for Meta (headline: “Apple Design Executive Alan Dye Poached by Meta in Major Coup”), but I think this is the best personnel news at Apple in decades. Dye’s decade-long stint running Apple’s software design team has been, on the whole, terrible — and rather than getting better, the problems have been getting worse.
