Tim Cook can’t wait to see what he’ll do with Apple design. Image source: Apple
The legendary Apple design team hasn’t had much luck holding onto leadership since Jony Ive left, and with COO Jeff Williams retiring, the leadership role will shift to CEO Tim Cook.
Those keeping score at home will know that Apple CEO Tim Cook is an excellent industry supply chain strategist that launched Apple into what it is today. Cook isn’t exactly known for his merits in industrial or software design, if he has any to claim.
However, it doesn’t matter because by the end of 2025, the design team at Apple will be reporting directly to Tim Cook. The COO Jeff Williams, who is currently overseeing the design team, will be retiring later in 2025.
Apple’s design team has seen a lot of flux since Scott Forstall was ousted as a result of the great Apple Maps launch debacle of 2012. Jony Ive took over industrial and interface design as the new SVP of Design in 2013, which transitioned into a more flowery title of Chief Design Officer as Apple tried to convince him to stick around.
Jony Ive finally left Apple in 2019, in spite of Apple letting him release a $17,000 first-generation Apple Watch coated in gold. The Chief Design Officer position left with Ive, but Evans Hankey was placed in charge as vice president of industrial design, while Alan Dye was left as lead for software design.
Hankey’s position was short-lived as she departed in 2023, leaving another power vacuum in the design team. COO Jeff Williams stepped in, and the design team reported to him directly, at least until a replacement design head could be named.
No new design head was ever named, which likely means Apple’s internal restructuring works for the company as it exists today. The software design team is still led by Alan Dye, who was shown presenting Liquid Glass during WWDC 2025.
Let Tim Cook
With Williams departing Apple, the design team changes leadership once again and will report directly to Tim Cook. It is unknown how much influence Williams had, or Cook will have, on hardware design going forward.
In spite of all this leadership turnaround, Apple has had quite the successful industrial design run in the last five years since the death of the butterfly keyboard. The incredibly thin and light iPad Pro, new thinner MacBook Pro with more ports, smaller Mac mini, and Dynamic Island have all occurred since Jony Ive’s and Evans Hankey’s departures.
Jeff Williams had a key role in the development of the Apple Watch, so his influence was likely felt by the design team. It is unknown how hands-on Cook will be going forward, nor what changes he might make.
Since Apple’s products are designed with several years of lead time, there’s a chance we may not see any influence from Tim Cook on product design for a while, if ever. Likely, the company can ride on the existing planned product pipelines until a proper replacement for Ive, Hankey, and Williams is named so Cook doesn’t need to interject into the design team’s strategy.
Apple seemed to plan on bringing in a new design executive as recently as 2023, which could very well be Alan Dye, but obviously the plans haven’t been made public, if they exist. In the meantime, Apple’s design team will likely continue to operate uninterrupted by the transition.
