Apple’s long-time chief design officer Jony Ive, the aesthetic mind behind the company’s signature products like the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone, is leaving the Cupertino-based tech giant to start his own independent design firm. His departure marks another sign of Apple’s transformation from its roots as a hardware company to a digital services giant.
Ive will be starting a company called LoveFrom with Apple peer and industrial designer Marc Newson. Ive had been at Apple for nearly 30 years, while Newson joined in 2014.
“This is not a hard break-up. Apple is going to be Johnny Ive’s first client,” Jason Rotman, a director at Everplus Capital, told Cheddar Friday.
Investors may not be as sure, with shares falling nearly 2 percent after the announcement. But Rotman says, “Number one, the product design pipeline ー in a sense ー has already been set for multiple years, so it’s not like you’re going to start to see massive differences in the look and feel in April products January 2020. So that’s something that should assuage Apple investors.”
Now, investors are left weighing the company’s trillion-dollar market capitalization, which could keep the company’s continuing rise humble, against the strength of Apple’s emerging software and services business and another round of stock buybacks.
“It’s not really the growth story that it used to be, and it’s really a bona fide utility and services company,” Rotman added. “I think we could be seeing peak Apple ー not just because of Jony Ive leaving ー but the overall business has shifted.”
However, he highlighted that much of Apple’s future, including its credit card and the Apple News product, don’t necessarily involve Ive’s aesthetic and product-design expertise.
“What does Jony Ive have to do with the Apple card? Really, not that much,” said Rotman.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
Southwest Airlines will soon require plus-size travelers to pay for an extra seat in advance if they can't fit within the armrests of one seat. This change is part of several updates the airline is making. The new rule starts on Jan. 27, the same day Southwest begins assigning seats. Currently, plus-size passengers can pay for an extra seat in advance and later get a refund, or request a free extra seat at the airport. Under the new policy, refunds are still possible but not guaranteed. Southwest said in a statement it is updating policies to prepare for assigned seating next year.
Cracker Barrel is sticking with its new logo. For now. But the chain is also apologizing to fans who were angered when the change was announced last week.
Elon Musk on Monday targeted Apple and OpenAI in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the iPhone maker and the ChatGPT maker are teaming up to thwart competition in artificial intelligence.
