Alan Dye (VP, User Interface Design), Jony Ive (Chief Design Officer) and Richard Howarth (VP, Industrial Design)

Jony Ive’s promotion to Chief Design Officer at Apple, first announced in a profile of Ive by Stephen Fry in late May, came into effect yesterday. Alongside Ive’s promotion, and also telegraphed in Stephen Fry’s article, Alan Dye and Richard Howarth also assumed their respective new roles yesterday as Vice President of User Interface Design and Vice President of Industrial Design.

All three promotions were made official yesterday with an update to Apple’s Leadership page. You can read the updated profile pages for Jony Ive, Alan Dye and Richard Howarth.

In Stephen Fry’s article from May, he asked Ive why he gave up control to Dye and Howarth:

When I catch up with Ive alone, I ask him why he has seemingly relinquished the two departments that had been so successfully under his control. “Well, I’m still in charge of both,” he says, “I am called Chief Design Officer. Having Alan and Richard in place frees me up from some of the administrative and management work which isn’t … which isn’t …”

“Which isn’t what you were put on this planet to do?”

“Exactly. Those two are as good as it gets. Richard was lead on the iPhone from the start. He saw it all the way through from prototypes to the first model we released. Alan has a genius for human interface design. So much of the Apple Watch’s operating system came from him. With those two in place I can …”

[via MacRumors]