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Apple Announces Upcoming Departure of Lead Product Designer Evans Hankey

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Apple's vice president of industrial design Evans Hankey plans to leave the company next year, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple confirmed the report in a statement, but her successor has not been named yet.

Apple Evans Hankey

Apple's hardware design lead Evans Hankey (left) and software design lead Alan Dye (right)

"Apple's design team brings together expert creatives from around the world and across many disciplines to imagine products that are undeniably Apple," an Apple spokesperson said in a statement shared with Bloomberg today. "The senior design team has strong leaders with decades of experience. Evans plans to stay on as we work through the transition, and we'd like to thank her for her leadership and contributions."

Hankey succeeded Jony Ive as Apple's de-facto design chief after he left the company in 2019, reporting to Apple's operations chief Jeff Williams. She will remain at Apple for at least the next six months, and Apple's software design lead Alan Dye is also staying at Apple and will continue to report to Williams, according to the report.

Top Rated Comments

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siddavis
45 months ago
Making the design team thinner.
Score: 52 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nattK Avatar
nattK
45 months ago

Maybe that's his reason for leaving, he's had enough of Tim Apple?

If this is the guy that decided the over priced entry level iPad should have the landscape oriented camera, yet the iPad Pros shouldn’t, then I say Bye!!
Evans Hankey’s a woman.
Score: 44 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macsplusmacs Avatar
macsplusmacs
45 months ago
Stares at two people in photo.

Wants the table they are leaning on.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
S
Sasparilla
45 months ago
Thanks for all the hard work Evans, so many amazingly good designs over the last years, will be missed.


I’m not really well-versed with company structure, but my question is… isn’t it also up to the executives, Tim etc to sign off on designs too? like, is it really all on the designers? do they come up with the designs *and* say “this must release just as is. no changes.”?

I just figure some other players would have a say in how something looks after the designers draft it up.
You nailed it here. It's going to be a combination of what designers want with what engineers can do within cost constraints enforced by others (hello Apple pencil v1 on the new base iPad total cost call there) - and then of course you have the top execs who oversee it all who could affect things.

As others have pointed out, Apple has done astoundingly well under their current CEO, but the company misses someone at the flyover exec level who would put their foot down and say "you know what folks, this really sucks, we can't do it like this.", that Job's did - thinking of Apple Watch v3 carried on for years where you could not do a OS update without doing a factory reset 1st, every single time, or this goofy v1 pencil on the iPad etc..

The company is doing fine without that, but it would do better with someone making these calls and keeping the user experience quality at top notch (for everything). Tough to get someone like that, which the CEO could trust who wouldn't also be an ego centric nut job though.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kylo83 Avatar
Kylo83
45 months ago
explains a lot really, the latest products show it, they need to hire a new team that are best for the job
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
C
citysnaps
45 months ago

Maybe that's his reason for leaving, he's had enough of Tim Apple?
She could have left for a variety of reasons; from her Apple stock vesting, to wanting to pursue a different opportunity, to moving to another part of the country, to wanting to retire and enjoy life, and on and on.

Tim Apple? Why the juvenile slam?
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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