After Liquid Glass: Apple's Interface Design Chief Moves to Meta
With Alan Dye, Apple is losing another key employee to Meta. This is met with approval in the community frustrated by the Liquid Glass design.
Apple's Interface Design Chief Alan Dye introducing Liquid Glass.
(Image: Apple)
Apple's leadership is not finding peace: Immediately after the AI chief, the Interface Design Chief Alan Dye is now leaving. Like other key employees from Apple's AI and design team before him, he is moving directly to competitor Meta, as reported by the financial news agency Bloomberg, citing informed sources. Apple's "Design Leader" Billy Sorrentino, who presented key innovations in Apple Intelligence, will also be working for Meta in the future.
Steve Lemay, an interface designer who has been with Apple for decades, will succeed Dye, as the company confirmed to Bloomberg. Apple has not had a top designer at the highest executive level since Jony Ive's departure.
Radical Overhaul in Apple's Top Management
There has been significant movement in Apple's management in recent months, which had been remarkably stable in terms of personnel for many years: In the past few months alone, the company has gained a new Chief Operations Officer and a new Chief Financial Officer. AI Chief John Giannandrea left his position this week after the debacle surrounding Apple Intelligence and Siri – this position will not be refilled at the highest level for the time being. Observers expect further changes, and the departure of Tim Cook as CEO is again being discussed.
With Dye and Giannandrea, the two decisive figures behind Apple's biggest software initiatives of the past two years – Apple Intelligence and Liquid Glass – are no longer with the company.
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To bolster its own AI and design team, Meta has been on an aggressive shopping spree for specialists and top managers for several months. The ambition is clear: AI is to be used to launch the next major platform after the smartphone and ideally dominate it from the start. OpenAI is working on a similar project – in conjunction with design luminary Jony Ive and other former members of Apple's design and hardware teams.
Much Frustration Over Liquid Glass
The departure of designer Alan Dye is met with a rather positive echo in the Apple community – coupled with the hope for a more coherent new beginning. Dye is the face behind the much-discussed new Liquid Glass design, which all new Apple operating systems now rely on. It caused a series of new bugs and interface problems that not only frustrated developers but also caused annoyance among users – partly due to poorer readability and inconsistent user interfaces. Apple continues to refine the design and has just released iOS version 26.1 with a central switch to make the glass surfaces less transparent.
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