Apple Promotes Apple's Jony Ive as 'Chief Design Officer'

Jony Ive, Apple's top designer is giving up day-to-day managerial duties for a newly created position of Chief Design Officer. The company CEO Tim Cook congratulated Ive on the new role.

Ive will hand off his day-to-day managerial responsibilities of ID and UI to Richard Howarth, who is going to be the new vice president of Industrial Design.

Apple also named Alan Dye as vice president of User Interface Design.

"The new Chief Design Officer title is a symbolic gesture recognizing his strategic importance to Apple's future," Neil Cybart, an independent analyst and founder of the Above Avalon website covering Apple's business, said Monday in an e-mail. "In many ways, Jony's new role is the closest thing yet to the unofficial role that Steve Jobs held at Apple. With day-to-day managerial duties being handed off to capable team members, Jony now has more time to focus on the big picture, although history would suggest he will remain quite involved with the details."

The leadership change was first announced in a Telegraph profile by Stephen Fry yesterday.

"As Chief Design Officer, Jony will remain responsible for all of our design, focusing entirely on current design projects, new ideas and future initiatives," Cook wrote in an email sent to Apple employees, published by 9to5mac.