According to “creative bloq,” weeks after the news spread of designer Abidor Chaudhri, the mind behind the iPhone Air concept, moving to work at an AI company, a new resignation has emerged from a prominent figure in Apple’s “visual experience” system. Executive Director of User Interface Design, Alan Dye, has moved to Meta.
Mark Zuckerberg himself announced on Threads the establishment of a “new creative studio” within Reality Labs led by Dye, explaining that this studio will bring together design, fashion, and technology “to define the next generation of Meta products and experiences,” in a move seen as a direct attempt to invest in Apple’s decades-long design expertise.
The importance of Dye’s departure lies not only in his position but also in being responsible for one of Apple’s most controversial interfaces in recent years: Liquid Glass, which has sparked division between users and experts, between those who see it as a seamless visual transition and those who consider it an example of formal exaggeration at the expense of clarity and practicality. In parallel, the iPhone Air, with its bold design compromises, still faces criticism from a segment of users who felt that the device’s lightness came at the expense of the stability and comfortable user experience they were accustomed to.
Although the movement of employees between tech giants is not new, it is remarkable that two of the minds behind “Apple’s boldest and most divisive design tricks” are leaving at this accelerated pace, and in almost the same direction. This path raises questions not only about Apple’s ability to retain talent but also about its confidence in its recent design choices, amid growing voices accusing the company of still making formally “bold” decisions, but no longer seeming fully convinced of them, whether in its devices or in its visual language.
