From Bloomberg: Apple’s John Ternus Has Found a New Design Chief: Himself:

[The design arrangement] changed when Williams retired last year. Although Cook announced in a press release that the design teams would report directly to him after Williams’ departure — and that was true on paper — they actually began answering to Ternus. Cook gave him responsibility for design as part of the eventual transition to CEO. During the CEO transition period between April and September, Apple’s design leaders were effectively Ternus’ only direct reports before Cook stepped down.

Ternus already had some involvement with the design studio as Apple’s head of hardware engineering, given the close coordination required between the two functions. Since becoming CEO, however, he has immersed himself in the industrial design and human interface teams. Several people familiar with the department say he works hands-on in the studio several times a week, sometimes visiting multiple times in a single day.

Steve Jobs, of course, was known for taking a similarly direct approach to design while working with Ive. But Ternus’ involvement marks a major shift from the Cook era. Designers say Cook typically visited the studio for about an hour once a month, at most.

… With Ternus making design a major priority and taking such an active role in the department, it appears he has already chosen Apple’s new design leader and ultimate decision maker: himself.

Compared to Tim Cook, Ternus’ involvement is refreshing. Colour me intrigued. Cook was never much of a product guy, and there were times when the products suffered for it.

The comparison to Steve Jobs makes my eyes roll into the back of my head a little bit. We need to stop comparing every tech CEO to Steve. Only Steve could be Steve.

One thing that Steve had was taste, and he had it in spades. It remains to be seen if Ternus has taste. It sounds like he took over in July last year, presumably when the new Liquid Glass designs were already wrapped. So I’m encouraged to see Liquid Glass get a little better this year. All their changes have pushed it a little closer to the Aqua designs of yore, and it’s a massive improvement over all.

I also think Ternus is a good speaker and a smart (and shrewd) guy, and it comes across like he knows his stuff. In a couple interviews with Tom’s Guide and TechRadar, Ternus speaks clearly and intelligently about his team’s products.

But clearly Ternus is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was a known Mac Pro apologist at one point. He understands the Mac. If he doesn’t like Liquid Glass on the Mac, I wouldn’t be surprised.

But as CEO, he as conflicting priorities:

  1. Apple’s pride and hubris forbids it from admitting mistakes and rolling back a design. So we need to wait until the next full redesign in a few years to see if Ternus has the goods.
  2. Ternus might be a product guy, but he’s also a corporate CEO, and he knows the iPhone is where the juice is. What’s good for iPhone is good for Mac, from that perspective, so maybe Liquid Glass stays, even if it makes the platform a little worse.
  3. Money, money, money is the top priority for a CEO.

So fixing designs that old-school (read: old) people in the community don’t like is probably pretty low down his priority list.

All that to say, I don’t know what to think about this. It’s either very good news or very bad news, but it’s hard to imagine that a CEO spending hours a week guiding the designers is a neutral event with no consequences whatsover.

We’ll have to wait and see.