It’s been a few months since the announcement of Jony Ive’s impending departure from Apple, but in the wake of their iPhone 11 event, launch, and iOS 13 bugs, I wanted to revisit a couple drafts I never published, and weave them together into this single post.

Apple and I have a storied history… in the late 90’s and early 00’s, I was far from a fan. I hated their high costs, walled gardens, and the arrogance of their freshly returned co-founder and his overbearing fans. I used those bullet-points to make fun of friends who paid a premium for Apple products while I built my own computer, used a Zune, and wallowed in my unfounded, ignorant sense of superiority. But Apple’s contributions to the weird and wonderful crossroad of art and technology became undeniable as I moved away from using computers for gaming and browsing, and into creative/design work.

Shortly after buying a MacBook Pro for art/design school, I found myself with an iPod Touch… then an iPhone… and eventually an iPad. Within one short year, I had somehow collected the whole set and have never looked back.

The tipping point wasn’t the great design or seamless interplay across devices, it was Jony Ive; who (for me, at least) was the beating heart of Apple. The entire company was shaped in his image products being pared down to their core elements. His voice-overs were a thing of beauty and his passion for the work was tangible as he softly spoke about chamfered edges. That pursuit of simplicity, of clean and responsible design, of passion for the tiniest little details, finally made me a fan. And I came to realize, that pursuit is what kept people obsessed with Apple long before me; they didn’t settle for a minimum viable product and tweak it after launch, like everyone else. Instead, they found the simplest expression of the idea, and tried to perfect it before ever announcing it (AirPower aside).

But those successes brought responsibility to Jony Ive. He took on the software design team, ran himself ragged with the Apple Watch, threw himself headfirst into their spaceship campus, and probably worked on insane car concepts the world will never see. His voice popped up in less videos. His face was shown in less promos. But to most of us, he seemed like an integral part of Apple’s DNA (and in terms of their hierarchy, he was untouchable).

So why leave Apple? And why now?

My take is personal. I’m a designer by day, writer by night, and artist when the muse strikes… but I’m the first to admit, I do my best work when facing a challenge. Sometimes it’s a deadline, or an uncompromising colleague, but I need something or someone to help me go above and beyond my personal limits.

Never was that more apparent then after a promotion I fought for, and was extremely excited about, left me immune from the feedback of my bosses and critique of my peers. I grew bored, unhappy, restless… and as more of my first-drafts were rubber-stamped and sent off to client, I looked more seriously at job postings and recruiter messages on LinkedIn.

I’m not alone in this quirk. Most creatives need an editor to keep us sharp, a leader to keep us focused, and a collaborator to expand our brains in ways we can’t. Eight years after the Jobs-era abruptly ended, it’s clear that Apple couldn’t provide that for Jony.

They needed him to be challenging others instead of the other way around.

But while Jobs was perfect in that role of curator, Jony’s reasons for leaving sound like he’s anxious to get back to work, instead of overseeing it. He’s ready for the next challenge.

Apple isn’t doomed. Their products were never solely designed by Sir Jony Ive, and he is the first to admit this. His team remains at Apple, now unshackled from their Chief Design Officers past and preferences; one step removed from Jony, two steps removed from Jobs. And as they grapple with faulty butterfly keyboards, expanding their list of services, and delving into new product categories (cars, wearables, AR/VR…), a little freedom from their past might be just what’s needed to do their best work possible.

After almost a year in my miserable role, I too left for something better. I’m much happier, have refound the concept of work-life balance, and am able to focus on zines, poetry, and blogging once again. None of that was possible while working 60+ hours a week, constantly being tired, and feeling ashamed for taking breaks where I wasn’t on-call.

Hopefully the same will be true for Jony as he departs the behemoth of Apple, where his responsibilities and influence seemed endless.

Now, he can work on as many beautiful, aluminum artifacts as he wants. And while some of that work may still be for Apple, getting out of the day-to-day grind can go a long way towards making you happy and healthy.

The big question after all of this, is what happened to the Apple Genius? The stores no longer have a Genius Bar you can wander up to for help, instead you need an appointment days in advance (as if you plan to break your life-line to the world). The company doesn’t have any one designer/developer leading keynotes, now it’s a stream of different people across teams telling lame jokes and doing demos that drag on too long. Apple seems like a much more distant, cold, corporation now than it ever did before.

Maybe that’s the reality of being one of the biggest and richest companies in the world, but I can’t help but mourn the death of the Genius. The company rebuilt on a “think different” campaign, doesn’t seem to think very different than a lot of the crowd. And neither do its users.

Even though my feelings about Steve Jobs are complicated, he had a guiding philosophy that you could understand and an aesthetic you either loved or hated. The whole company felt like it stood for something during his era, and their decisions and products aligned with his vision for the future. It’s what made people bleed six-colors to begin with, and is the reason why they’re so huge today.

The loss of Jony Ive was so news-worthy because he was the person Jobs left behind as their heart and soul; and in 2019, he really seems like the last remaining Genuis of old. Without him, the fear that they’ll play things safe and chase incremental updates over big, ambitious innovations seems much more likely. And while that’s helpful in a lot of practical ways, especially for all of us who rely on their hardware and software to make a living, it’s not quite who we fell in love with either.