Apple may be moving back toward the design-focused culture that shaped some of its most important products. New CEO John Ternus has reportedly made design a much bigger part of his job, spending significant time with the company’s industrial design and human interface teams.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple also does not appear to be actively looking for an executive to oversee the entire design organization. Ternus now appears to be filling that gap himself, giving the company’s hardware and software design groups a single senior decision-maker again after years of operating under separate leaders.
Design fits the way Ternus wants to run Apple
Ternus spent much of his Apple career in hardware engineering, eventually overseeing development across products including the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods. His early moves as CEO suggest he wants to stay close to product development rather than leave it entirely to the teams below him. Bloomberg says Ternus is leaving areas such as financial operations and supply-chain management largely to other senior executives. His attention remains focused on engineering, product development, and design.
While former CEO Tim Cook kept more distance from Apple’s design work, Ternus appears to be taking a far more hands-on approach. Bloomberg says designers are now seeing the new CEO in the studio regularly, sometimes more than once over the course of a day.
Apple is putting design closer to the top again
Jony Ive’s departure in 2019 left Apple’s industrial and software design groups without one executive sitting above both teams. Molly Anderson currently leads industrial design, while Steve Lemay heads human interface design. Neither oversees both groups. Ternus had already begun taking responsibility for Apple’s design organization before becoming CEO, according to Bloomberg.
Apple could still change the arrangement later, and it is far too early to know whether Ternus’ approach will lead to better products. Still, I find the direction encouraging. Apple’s recent hardware has often leaned more toward refinement than bold design changes, so having a CEO who wants to spend this much time around engineering and design makes me more excited about where the company could go next.
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