It’s been a big week in Apple executive movements. Let’s see if the Macalope can recap for you if you were unconscious for seven days (that sounds nice, can the Macalope get some of that?).
After the unsurprising news that defacto former Apple executive John Giannandrea would infacto be leaving the company, we learned that Apple’s head of user interface design Alan Dye would also be leaving for greener pastures at Meta (the green is all cash).
Breaking the news on Mastodon, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said:
Apple’s top design executive Alan Dye is leaving the iPhone maker to become the Chief Design Officer at Meta in a blockbuster coup for the social networking giant and big loss for Apple.
Mark Gurman
This is such Dye-friendly framing that one might be excused for thinking it was written by Alan Dye’s mom. It wasn’t. Or probably wasn’t, anyway.
Wouldn’t that be wild if Mark Gurman’s source this whole time has been Alan Dye’s mom? That would be an unexpected turn of events.
In reality, few people in the Apple community–other than Dye’s mom–think much of his work, which includes Liquid Glass and a number of horrible icons for macOS Tahoe. People not really seeing this as a “big loss” for Apple include, but are not limited to, Louie Mantia, John Gruber, Jason Snell, Nick Heer, Macworld contributor Alex Blake, and this furry observer.
Apple usually has good people waiting in the wings, and, in this instance at least, we have good reason to think the replacement will not only be good but a real upgrade.
…everyone I’ve spoken to is happy — if not downright giddy — at the news that Lemay is replacing Dye. Lemay is well-liked personally and deeply respected talent-wise. Said one source, in a position to know the choices, “I don’t think there was a better choice than Lemay.”
Later in the week, Apple also announced several other executives changes, including the retirements of general counsel Kate Adams and VP of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson. Adams will be replaced by ex-Meta chief legal officer Jennifer Newstead, and Jackson by a line on the org chart that is more often used on football locker room whiteboards to represent an end-run.
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Foundry
While many people were leaving Apple, at least one was trying to get back in. This news, that a man would like power and command the likes of which he has never wielded before, is huge, if true. Who, exactly, is saying this, you may wonder.
…Tony Fadell, a former Apple hardware executive who co-invented the iPod, has told associates recently…
Aaron Tilley and Wayne Ma, The Information
Someone told The Information that Tony Fadell said he would graciously accept the position of Apple CEO. Okay.
Just, for a second here, entertain the following: would it not be absolutely wild if The Information’s source here is Tony Fadell’s mom? Wilder still, Fadell and Dye were at Apple at the same time, so it’s theoretically possible the source is again Dye’s mom, but let’s not get crazy here and go with the single mother theory. The two-moms hypothesis seems more reasonable.
Sadly for Fadell, no matter who the sources are and how many times he writes “Mr. Apple CEO Tony Fadell” on the cover of his Trapper Keeper, he is not going to get the gig. Even The Information says he was “a polarizing figure” when he worked at Apple, and his time at Nest doesn’t seem to have burnished his reputation much as he rubbed his co-founder and employees equally the wrong way.
Well, at least we can settle down now that all the Apple executive news is-
“Apple Rocked by Executive Departures, With Chip Chief at Risk of Leaving Next”
Oh, come on. How is breaking news able to interrupt the Macalope mid-sentence in his own column? It makes no sense!
Yes, over the weekend, Mark Gurman brought a tin of cookies over to some Apple executive’s mom’s house, where she was heard to remark, “Ooh, yah, I hear that nice Johny Srouji fella is thinkin’ of leavin’, him what made the chips and all.”
The Macalope’s not sure whose mom this is, but he’s thinking upper midwestern accent. She’s serving Gurman a casserole out of a baking dish and pouring him some RC Cola out of a 2-liter bottle.
Unlike Dye’s departure, Srouji’s would truly be bad for Apple. Fortunately, this breaking news was re-broken on Monday morning when Gurman reported that Srouji sent out a memo to his staff saying he didn’t know what they may have heard from any of the various chatty parents of Apple executives, but he doesn’t “plan on leaving anytime soon”.
Here’s hoping all the remaining Apple executives take time off in the coming weeks to be with their families and don’t have bandwidth to think about leaving.