Meta Poaches Apple Design Exec Alan Dye 30
Apple's longtime human-interface chief Alan Dye is leaving to lead a new creative studio at Meta's Reality Labs, where he'll shape AI-driven design for devices like smart glasses and VR headsets. Dye will be replaced by Steve Lemay, who has had "a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999," according to a statement Apple CEO Tim Cook gave Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. TechCrunch reports: Shortly after the news broke of Dye's departure, Zuckerberg announced a new creative studio within Reality Labs that would be led by Dye. There, he'll be joined by Billy Sorrentino, another former Apple designer who led interface design across Reality Labs; Joshua To, who led interface design across Reality Labs; Meta's industrial design team, led by Pete Bristol; and its metaverse design and art teams led by Jason Rubin.
Zuckerberg said the studio would "bring together design, fashion, and technology to define the next generation of our products and experiences." "Our idea is to treat intelligence as a new design material and imagine what becomes possible when it is abundant, capable, and human-centered," the Meta CEO wrote on Threads. "We plan to elevate design within Meta, and pull together a talented group with a combination of craft, creative vision, systems thinking, and deep experience building iconic products that bridge hardware and software."
Zuckerberg said the studio would "bring together design, fashion, and technology to define the next generation of our products and experiences." "Our idea is to treat intelligence as a new design material and imagine what becomes possible when it is abundant, capable, and human-centered," the Meta CEO wrote on Threads. "We plan to elevate design within Meta, and pull together a talented group with a combination of craft, creative vision, systems thinking, and deep experience building iconic products that bridge hardware and software."
Rolls eyes (Score:5, Insightful)
God I can't stand designer bullshit speak. You can take your "design language" and cram it up your ass.
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Design language is a thing and has been since an industrial designer was an occupation. It encompasses the looks of something - like how John Deere equipment is green and yellow in particular ways. Apple had several design languages - anyone in the 90s is familiar with the Platinum design that encompassed the colors of the computers as well as the lines on the case.
It's also how you can tell a ThinkPad laptop even though they've been through different owners and many generations of computers.
It plays a much
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I don’t think that is true in general. In specific cases, sure. In this specific case? No, Dye’s designs are the regular kind of shit. He loves information hiding, and isn’t god at usability, aces ability, or legibility. Hierarchy of information isn’t a strong suit either (other then things he hides by default, as opposed to shows by default). Back when
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I'd respect the field more if they told management that the current design is good and that it can stay that way for the next five years while they work out som
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'Poaches'....Apple apparently happy about this (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to be a case of the Gene Wilder's Wonka scene "oh no, stop!" while doing nothing to actually stop it.
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Reminds me of when an executive left our company and higher ups were rushing to assure us that we shouldn't be too worried and don't let this hurt morale while mostly we either didn't care or were kind of glad to see the idiot go. Meanwhile the execs speaking would get obviously angry at the guy for betraying them and leaving.
It was clear that day that the executives actually think we give a crap about any one of them.
John Gruber is thrilled (Score:5, Insightful)
Gruber is probably the best connected of those who blog on Apple. See https://daringfireball.net/202... [daringfireball.net]
Alan Dye is not untalented. But his talents at Apple were in politics. His political skill was so profound that it was his decision to leave, despite the fact that his tenure is considered a disaster by actual designers inside and outside the company. He obviously figured out how to please Apple’s senior leadership. His departure today landed as a total surprise because his stature within the company seemed so secure. And so I think he might do very well at Meta. Not because he can bring world-class interaction design expertise—because he obviously can’t—but because the path to success at Meta has never been driven by design. It’s about getting done what Zuck wants done. Dye might excel at that. Dye was an anchor holding Apple back, but might elevate design at Meta.
(Personally, I think anyone who would go to work for Zuckerberg/Meta is someone I'm glad is not remaining at Apple. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out.")
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(Personally, I think anyone who would go to work for Zuckerberg/Meta is someone I'm glad is not remaining at Apple. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out.")
If Zuckerberg rolled a truck full of money to my house to change jobs, I wouldn't say no. I would however take the attitude of Peter Gibbons from Office Space though: Cleaning fish at my desk, etc.
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Zuck couldn't pay me enough to work for him. YMMV, of course.
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Me: "I wouldn't say I 'worked' for him, Bob"
Re:John Gruber is thrilled (Score:4, Insightful)
And I don't think I'd hire anyone who worked for Meta, either. To me, that's a reflection of "ethical failure".
Fortunately, I'm now retired.
dave
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It depends on the truck. One of those mining trucks the size of a few houses? sure. My F150's 5.5 foot bed? no.
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Not knowing anything at all about Apple and Dye and Lemay, the story seems depressingly familiar and totally believable based on my experience with big companies.
Someone useless occupies a high position because he convinces peers he is somehow insightful, everyone hates him for his crappy 'leadership', his departure pisses off the leadership team so much that all his allies are dead to them.... Yep, all of this absolutely looks like things I've seen at other companies...
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Not really useless, he was an ok design lead for iTunes...and I think he did Xcode design a little later as well that wasn’t awful. So I think this was more of an example of being better at getting himself promoted than actually doing the work after that point.
It won't matter (Score:2)
Meta's primary method for revenue is controlling users and serving them ads. I predict that they won't be able to understand hardware enough because they are so focused on other things. Making their products shiny won't give them an edge over apple, which protects users and their data to some extent (at least from other companies, so they can have all the data for themselves).
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As an ex-Apple employee I can say at least a decade ago Apple didn’t want your data, like it wasn’t a “non-goal” to get it, it was a goal to NOT get it. They viewed it as inherently of little value, but having the data means they have to protect it, a data breach is bad for the corporate image, as is a warrant attack (i.e. any government forcing Apple to give up customer data was also viewed as bad for the co
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Right, but they probably track location an other metrics outside of the device. That data is to valuable to not track and serve up ads, arguably for any company.
The beginning of the Meta "Transparency" era? (Score:2)
So, I guess that my Meta Quest headset is going to start having weird semi-transparent windows like the new version of iOS does?
I guess that some people think that the "Liquid Glass" look is cool, but it gives me PTSD flashbacks to the Windows Vista era.
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But it's "human-centered" design! Humans don't like to see gross charging ports or distressing buttons. They like things to be sleek and smooth with the controls hidden away so they can marvel at their own cleverness.
intelligent design material (Score:2)
"Our idea is to treat intelligence as a new design material and imagine what becomes possible when it is abundant, capable, and human-centered"
Shoes made of pure, abundant intelligence. I imagine that becomes possible. Or bum paper made of abundant, capable, human-centered intelligence that tells humans what kind of foods they should avoid and what they should eat instead.
Good. (Score:2)
Good. Maybe now Apple can get to fixing everything since iOS7.