Apple design boss Alan Dye departing for Meta – 9to5Mac

Alan Dye, Apple’s vice president of Human Interface Design since 2015, is departing the company. Bloomberg reports that Meta has poached Dye as part of its push “into AI-equipped consumer devices.”

Stephen Lemay, a 26-year Apple design veteran, will take over the role from Dye, who officially joins Meta on December 31.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Tim Cook said:

“Steve Lemay has played a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999. He has always set an extraordinarily high bar for excellence and embodies Apple’s culture of collaboration and creativity.

Design is fundamental to who we are at Apple, and today, we have an extraordinary design team working on the most innovative product lineup in our history.”

Dye informed Apple’s top management of his departure this week, though Bloomberg says “top management had already been bracing for his departure.”

At Meta, Dye will lead a new design studio and oversee hardware, software, and AI integration across Meta’s products. Bloomberg says Apple design deputy Billy Sorrentino is also leaving the company to join Meta.

Dye’s role at Apple has blossomed since the departure of Jony Ive in 2019. Most recently, he oversaw the massive Liquid Glass overall in iOS 26 and personally unveiled the new design language at WWDC in June. He also played a key role in the design of Apple Vision Pro and visionOS.

These departures are just the latest in a long string of changes in the top ranks at Apple. Most recently, Apple announced that John Giannandrea, senior vice president for Machine Learning and AI Strategy, is stepping down from his position and will officially retire in spring of 2026.

Other recent departures include COO Jeff Williams, who retired last month, as well as CFO Luca Maestri.

Apple has also lost a trove of designers to Jony Ive’s LoveFrom design company, as well as OpenAI. Ive and OpenAI are working on AI-powered hardware together, under the brand io.

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