Tim Cook Says WSJ Report on Departure of Jony Ive is 'Absurd'

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Posted July 2, 2019 at 12:10am by iClarified

Apple CEO Tim Cook has sent an email to NBC News calling a recent WSJ report on the departure of Jony Ive 'absurd'.

On Sunday night, WSJ reporter Tripp Mickle wrote that Ive "had been growing more distant from Apple’s leadership" in part because he was frustrated with Cook's "more operations-focused company".

"People in the design studio rarely saw Mr. Cook, who they say showed little interest in the product development process — a fact that dispirited Mr. Ive", wrote Mickle. "Mr. Ive grew frustrated as Apple’s board became increasingly populated by directors with backgrounds in finance and operations rather than technology or other areas of the company’s core business."

Additionally, the report said that designers Alan Dye and Richard Howarth have not commanded the same respect as Jony Ive.

Members of the human interface and industrial design teams viewed approval from their new leaders as merely tentative. “They still wanted Jony’s thumbs-up to go forward,” this person said.

In an email to NBC reporter Dylan Byers, Cook strongly discredited the report.

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Hi Dylan,

Hope you are well.

The story is absurd. A lot of the reporting, and certainly the conclusions just don't match with reality. At a base level, it shows a lack of understanding about how the design team works and how Apple works. It distorts relationships, decisions and events to the point that we just don't recognize the company it claims to describe.

The design team is phenomenally talented. As Jony has said, they're stronger than ever, and I have complete confidence that they will thrive under Jeff, Evans and Alan's leadership. We know the truth and we know the incredible things they're capable of doing. The projects they're working on will blow you away.

Best,
Tim

Sent from my iPhone
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Colleen Schwartz, senior vice president of communications for The Wall Street Journal, says that the newspaper stands by its reporting.

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Tim Cook Says WSJ Report on Departure of Jony Ive is 'Absurd'

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NoGoodNick - July 2, 2019 at 6:23pm

Cook’s current strategy seems to be: if the Chinese won’t pay our current prices, then we’ll stick Americans with our lost revenue, and if THEY won’t but our products at the current prices, we’ll instead build $30,000 to $60,000 iMac Pros that NO ONE wants! Forget design esthetics, someone needs to teach Cook simple arithmetic. If ppl won’t pay $1,000, then LOWER, rather than jack prices up.

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crc285 - July 2, 2019 at 12:48am

This is expected from Cook. It shows in his products that he is not as involved as Job’s was. The Founder and mind behind the Apple can’t ever be copied. The Apple we knew and loved is dead. Cook has been riding on the name for long enough. Now people are opening there eyes to the joke Cook has made Apple. I really hope they look back on Job’s work and make Apple the way it was.

curtixman - July 2, 2019 at 12:39am

Of course it absurd. That’s the #msm

stevenlacross - July 2, 2019 at 12:21am

That’s funny because Tim Cook said the same thing about products being worked on blowing us away years and years ago but ever since Steve jobs died, there hasn’t been any real innovation and the designers haven’t been all that great, and everything seems to have some sort of bug it in. antenna gate, bend gate, battery gate, force restarting gate, randomly loosing service gate, power button stopped working gate,... and on and on.