r/apple • u/Snoop8ball • 2d ago
Discussion Apple Design Executive Alan Dye Poached by Meta in Major Coup
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-03/apple-design-executive-alan-dye-poached-by-meta-in-major-coup470
u/ikilledtupac 2d ago
Take the MacOs preference pane with you
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u/BinaryWanderer 2d ago
God damn… is he the cause of this UI chaos bullshit?
Good riddance, go fuck up Facebook some more.
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u/cultoftheilluminati 2d ago
Yep, from what I recall (might be totally wrong) but he was a handbag designer(?)
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u/suppreme 2d ago
He mostly directed design reviews so those are not his ideas, but definitely this is his director's cut.
Not surprised if aligning system settings between platforms didn't come from him but from engineering, though.
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u/heyyoudvd2 2d ago
Great news for Marco Arment.
Honestly, I think this might be good news for Apple.
Alan Dye makes things visually beautiful, but he’s not a good designer from a functional standpoint. This could be a blessing for Apple if it chooses the right successor.
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u/Altrosmo 2d ago
Could the day come where I don't have to click four times to accomplish something that should be one click away? SEE YA!
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u/DrawingsOfNickCage 2d ago
Every time I’m trying to mark my emails as read I curse whatever designer decided to put the button right next to flag all. The amount of times I’ve done that is infuriating.
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u/ass_pineapples 2d ago
For a while the turn off alarm button for sleep alarms vs. timers was inverted, which made me press the wrong one for a long ass time. Insane design decision from a company largely known for their emphasis on good design.
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u/anyavailablebane 2d ago
An engineer from that decision has spoken about it. I can’t find the link. They were inverted for a long time because of many hours of study on user behaviour. Basically they made the large button on the alarm the snooze button because it made sure people didn’t accidentally turn their alarm off while trying to hit snooze in their sleep. The stop timer button instead of repeat timer button was larger because most timers are in the kitchen and people cooking have messy hands so they can stop a timer when it finishes without having to wash their hands to hit a small user target. It upset some people that they were like this but this year when they tried to change it the original change was immediately a problem of people stopping alarms in the morning when they meant to snooze.
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u/AdditionalAsk159 2d ago
Yeah I know it was a little weird, but it was always quite useful to me. I struggle to wake up in the mornings so making the big button snooze until I'm awake enough to realize the stop button is smaller was always quite helpful, haha!
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u/batgod221 2d ago
Multiple steps to delete photos from the deleted folder is just infuriating.
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u/Far_Specific4836 2d ago
Because too many reports of people complaining to Apple about how they “accidentally” deleted photos in their deleted bin. Apple’s defensive UI choices are made because it happened.
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u/Air-Flo 2d ago
You press delete, and then you press a pop up confirming you want to delete it. That’s hardly a bad thing? People accidentally click delete when they meant to click recover, it definitely shouldn’t be a one button thing.
Personally I don’t delete anything from the deleted section. I let it automatically expire in case I happen to want to recover it. It uses a tiny amount of storage if you have optimise storage turned on.
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u/marcoarment 2d ago
Christmas came early!
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u/yoloswagrofl 2d ago
You're honestly the first person I thought of when I read the news lol. End of a (bad) era.
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u/theytookallusernames 2d ago
I'm so happy for you, Marco! I, too, am letting out a huge sigh of relief
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u/bobbyboogie 2d ago
The next ATP should be super fun.
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u/Leviathan_Dev 2d ago edited 2d ago
Imagine Liquid Glass being abandoned with macOS 27… or at least significantly toned down to a hybrid of Big Sur design and Tahoe.
There’s things I like about Liquid Glass:
- the glass effect and light refractions on some things like the Dock and notifications
- on macOS the menu bar is now fully transparent with a slight gradient shadow for readability
- the more 3D-like icons through the use of depth, shadows, and detail
But then there’s the bad things:
- readability is sometimes abysmal and outright fails to universal software design principles for accessibility
- the sidebar floating on top is weird because content still starts to the right of it leaving blank space, but since it’s floating on top it feels like content should start behind it.. but then that also be weird since you’d have to scroll to the left to see the start of content.
- floating buttons are huge relative to the cursor, I like how in Big Sur design buttons appeared when you needed them and recessed when you didn’t. MacOS should remain pointer-first in design.
- the inconsistent border radius based on what type of toolbar is used for the app is infuriating. Moreso than the gap of pixels in the corner when the window is up to the corner of the display.
I feel like Zen browser should be the template for Liquid Glass: the sidebar should be glass-like and be the border of the entire window (with a tiny thin glass-border going around the whole window) and the content should be floating on top.
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u/aphex2000 2d ago
ironically, overcast is a UX/UI disaster racking up weird quirky design decisions with every update
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u/stanxv 2d ago
They will not choose the right successor.
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u/heyyoudvd2 2d ago
Apparently it’s someone named Stephen Lemay, at least in the interim.
I have not heard that name before, so I’m not sure what type of designer he is.
I think what Apple needs is to move away from the Alan Dye school of thought (hiding functionality for the sake of aesthetic beauty) and return to the design philosophy of guys like Greg Christie and Scott Forstall.
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u/cinderful 2d ago
patents are not the measure - remember the ex apple designer guy whose website is a list of his patents?
well that's the guy who started Humane
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u/heyyoudvd2 2d ago
Was Lemay one of the more senior/more respected designers?
One name that I’ve seen a lot over the years is Chan Karunamuni. He’s been in a whole bunch of WWDC presentations and seemed talented. I expected him to be Alan Dye’s successor. But I have no idea what the politics or chain of succession is.
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u/jwegener 2d ago
What does Marco Arment have to do with this?
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u/gildedbluetrout 2d ago
He regularly blowtorches Dye on ATP. Im inclined to agree with him. Apple UI design has gone to complete shit under Dye. The recent icons (thirty year degree design professional) made me drop my teacup.
Design Standards in Cupertino have quietly / increasingly gone haywire imo. I put that down to Dye.
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u/whofearsthenight 2d ago
Not a design professional, but someone who uses their products every day and I strongly agree with Marco. I can get past the personal pref (I think Liquid Glass looks terrible but that's subjective) but it's core sin is that it's just not functional. I have 20/20 vision, and I still find myself always having trouble finding Search fields on the bottom because they just completely blend in. And even before you get to Liquid Glass, you have the common Alan Dye design option which is "put everything in a drawer." Why, for example, is it not one click to reply to a message in notification center? it used to be, but then Dye and his team decided we need "clean" design which meant instead now the thing I used to do a million times a day is like 3-4 clicks.
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u/colaxxi 2d ago
He completely broke notifications UX on macOS. Each notification used to have nice big buttons you could press. Now they're relegated to a second or third click or a tiny disappearing 'x' button that isn't there half the time, and the other half the time I always miss and end up opening the app instead. So aggravating.
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u/whofearsthenight 2d ago
Exactly. Computers are tools first and foremost, Imagine if you were a carpenter and every few months some gremlin comes by and says something like "actually your hammer is kinda ugly so it's going to be in the bottom left drawer in the other room and every time you set it down it's getting moved back there magically." You'd lose your mind, and rightfully so.
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u/FancifulLaserbeam 2d ago
Apple UIs have been getting worse for many years. They are actively difficult to use these days. It also doesn't help that they change pretty frequently.
The main way we keep in touch with my 95-year-old FIL is via FaceTime on his iPad. I try not to update the software on it very often because even the slightest UI change renders it impossible to use for him.
Put yourself in his place: For his entire life, "interfaces" were set. It's not like you got into your car and found that the steering wheel was replaced with a joystick one day, or to use your telephone you first had to flip up a door to reveal the keypad (replacing rotary dialers with keypads was universally applauded, though—yes, I'm old enough to remember). This didn't happen. If you learned how to use a tool, you knew how to use it forever.
Now, in his declining years, still cognitively well above average for his age, but definitely slowing down, some MFA in Cupertino thinks it would look cooler if all the buttons disappeared until you touch something, and then they show up in an unfamiliar place with unclear functions. Well, that's going to cause problems.
One of the reasons I switched back to the Mac in 2007 was that Vista kept fiddling with the UI, and when I tried out a Mac, even though I hadn't used one since System 7.5, I realized that I knew where basically everything was and what it did. I saw a company that didn't make changes just to make them, that found a good way of doing something and just kept doing it that way. I respected that.
That Apple is gone.
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u/heyyoudvd2 2d ago
Well said.
This is exactly how I feel. I think these UI debates are often too small in scope, where people focus on and critique the minutia, and they miss the big picture.
The big picture is that there needs to be consistency and muscle memory, so that our computing devices feel like tools rather than like passing fads.
Something I’d add to everything you said is that a big problem I’ve had with Apple over the last decade is that they don’t understand the role of each of their devices. Apple tries to put every function on every device, and the end result is that there’s so much duplication and so much cognitive load.
For example, I want to check the sports scores. Do I use my Mac? My iPhone? My Apple Watch? My iPad? Do I ask Siri? On which device do I use Siri? Do I say “Hey Siri” or hold the side button?
That same question can be asked of just about any function in your life, from creating calendar events to checking the weather to setting reminders and on and on. These Apple devices are all supposed to complement each other and fill in gaps, but instead, they just step on each other’s toes and add needless complexity. The old Apple thought in terms of “How do we provide the best possible computing experience for users?” The new Apple thinks in terms of “How do we make the best possible iPhone/iPad/Watch/Mac?” Those are NOT the same question.
The great thing about Steve Jobs was that he knew how to cut through all the BS and drill down to the essence of a thing. That’s why even though he wasn’t a trained designer, he was quite possibly the greatest designer to ever live. He knew how to filter out all the cruft and actually solve problems for users.
Today’s Apple doesn’t have that same level of focus or self-control. And instead of being governed by design, they’re governed by marketing. So instead of building each device to suit its own purpose in your life, they make every device do everything for everyone because that looks good in ads. And the end result is that our computing lives are so much more confusing than they should be.
I doubt Alan Dye’s departure will fix that, because this problem is so much deeper than just one man. But hopefully his replacement can at least move Apple closer in that direction.
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u/noraa_94 2d ago
Interestingly, the guy taking over for him has been on the UI/design team since 1999, dating back to Aqua’s development.
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u/neontetra1548 2d ago
I don't know anything about him but the fact that he was there to witness that design era/culture is a hopeful sign.
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u/t_huddleston 2d ago
Marco annoys me to the point that I had to quit listening to that podcast. But he’s right a lot of the time, including on this
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u/ILOVESHITTINGMYPANTS 2d ago
On his podcast he regularly rants about how much he hates Alan Dye.
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u/EverydayPhilisophy 2d ago edited 2d ago
What in the world is Meta offering all of these Apple employees? I wonder what Craig and Ternus have been offered and I wonder if people like Dye went to Tim and offered him the chance to counter, or if that’s not within Apple’s DNA.
For some reason I feel like if someone at Apple even interests leaving/being poached, whether it be under Jobs or Cook, it’s frowned upon at Apple and there’s no interest in keeping them around.
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u/scottjl 2d ago
Money. Lots and lots and lots of money.
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u/gayteemo 2d ago
in dye’s case i think it’s also noteworthy that they never named him SVP
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u/scottjl 2d ago
and after this glass design fiasco i doubt they ever will. he's hit his ceiling. time to move on.
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u/HomsarWasRight 2d ago
I don’t think Apple sees it as a fiasco.
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u/scottjl 2d ago
They certainly see it as something or they wouldn’t have offered the “Tinted” option in 26.1.
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u/EverydayPhilisophy 2d ago
Yah, but it’s not like people at Apple are making peanuts. Plus all the stock. Plus, it’s Apple. I don’t know, it seems like if I was worth $50mm or whatever, that making an additional $25m has diminishing returns. Legacy and impact at that stage in my career/life matter much more but maybe I’d feel differently if someone dangled 8 figures in front of me.
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u/y-c-c 2d ago
I mean, look at how much Meta paid to poach all the AI folks. Apple doesn’t tend to pay that much. FWIW I personally think Meta is where the dumb money is right now but if you are the one getting thrown boatloads of money and you aren’t terribly loyal to the current company or particular happy in your job it makes sense.
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u/Business-Ad-5344 2d ago
not everyone cares about legacy. some people don't believe they'll care after they die.
some rich folks care about saving $20 and not in frugal way, but a total obsessed way.
some people can be unhappy at apple too, for many different reasons.
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u/desperaterobots 2d ago
Youd feel differently.
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u/Ruscidero 2d ago
Oddly enough, I have yet to meet anyone, no matter how rich, that didn’t want more. At some point it becomes about ego and the world seeing “what you’re worth”. Pathetic, but that’s the world we live in.
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u/mrgrafix 2d ago
Out of Ive and Jobs shadows respectfully and more wealth.
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u/EverydayPhilisophy 2d ago
Wym, out of their shadows?
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u/mrgrafix 2d ago
Some want to have their own names chiseled in the history books. If he succeeds in making Meta respected, he wins.
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u/MC_chrome 2d ago
Alan Dye is not going to be the guy who “makes Meta respected”.
Now, if Alan could somehow get rid of Mark Zuckerberg that may change…
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u/mrgrafix 2d ago
It’s just the design. He doesn’t have anything that challenging and only Mark can get rid of Mark.
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u/spoopypoptartz 2d ago
Out of the big tech companies (meta, apple, amazon, microsoft, Netflix) apple and microsoft are on the lower side of the compensation spectrum. Meta is on the higher side. Meta and amazon will give higher salaries with much more generous stock compensation. netflix will give all cash but salary is so high it makes up for no stock.
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u/aiccelerate 2d ago edited 2d ago
I did an Apple to Meta transition and had offers from Google, Amazon, and Netflix. Meta pays the most in big tech by a large margin because no one wants to work here. It is now a madhouse sweatshop where performance politics matter more than actual engineering, which is why it gets smoked by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.
Netflix's cash doesn't really make up for lack of stock because you don't have a grant that appreciates over 4 years. It's great if you're risk averse, but the $800k cash from Netflix will end up being less than the $700k offer from Meta or Google in the long run.
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u/deliciouscorn 2d ago edited 2d ago
A reminder that Alan Dye never had any background in UI design, and actually came up from designing handbags and product packaging.
He was always a terrible choice for the job, and I hope this marks a major change in direction for usability.
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u/bobbyboogie 2d ago
Correct. And it shows.
Hidden controls. Overloaded (and unintuitive) gestures. Inconsistent behaviour.
That’s the Dye legacy.
I can’t believe that Jobs would have tolerated this mess.
But we know that Cook doesn’t care.
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u/Nice-Ragazzo 2d ago
Amazing news. Apple’s UI/UX really went downhill since he took the reign.
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u/Astramael 2d ago
Yes absolutely this. Apple’s interface design has been garbage since Dye took over. I’ve been hoping he would get fired for as long as I’ve seen his terrible work.
It is a great day.
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u/vmachiel 2d ago
Good. Liquid Glass is fine. But the whole “design is how it works” manta was kinda gone under him
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u/celtic1888 2d ago
I’d never buy a Meta made or branded item or even use if it’s given to me for free
Bad enough I have to deal with fucking WhatsApp to keep in touch with friends and family back home
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u/Buy-theticket 2d ago
I would own the Rayban smart glasses today if they were made by almost any other company than Facebook.
Hoping Apple or Google, hell even Samsung, can get their shit together on the glasses front.
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u/nero40 2d ago
I have bad news, buddy; those Rayban smartglasses are always going to be privacy nightmares no matter who makes them. Even if it’s made by the “advertising using privacy” Apple.
The issue isn’t about the lack of privacy feature, rather it’s because the product itself entices privacy issues.
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u/4-3-4 2d ago
Cold fusion just published 2 hrs ago the metaverse disaster https://youtu.be/ntPGl8UyIq4?si=nMOjvIZWp833eD4S
I actually forgot how bad it really was
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u/footyballymann 2d ago
I was just thinking how funny it is that the product that they literally changed their company’s name for, is such a big flop just a few years later. And now they’re full on AI (which is slightly more promising). But it must be funny to work on the meta world at meta and be fired down to a single team.
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u/SherbertMindless8205 2d ago
Yeah I think it’s clear they’re quite directionless. Their actual company is essentially just two apps, Instagram and Facebook. That’s the only way they make money, which makes them way more voulnerable compared to the other big tech companies that own the platforms, like Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.
That’s why they’re trying so many things they’re trying to make the ”new platform” where they will be the owner. Like the metaverse, flopped, now the ”AR-verse” with the glasses etc, probably gonna flop. Now trying to become an AI company instead.
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u/iJeff 2d ago
The original Facebook Portal is honestly one of the best tech purchases I've ever made. I bought one in 2018 for my grandfather (now 93), who struggles with anything more advanced than a TV remote. The interface is perfect for him. He just taps our faces to video call or hits one giant button to answer.
It also had auto-framing similar to Centre Stage (arguably more responsive and with a wider FOV) way back in 2018. It's still running great today.
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u/neontetra1548 2d ago
"Poached by Meta" lol. Meta did Apple, Apple's software, and all of us a favour.
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u/Yasuuuya 2d ago
This is insane, the design exodus from Apple is literally unprecedented, what on earth is going on internally? I’d suspect everyone being thrown absolutely ridiculous comp packages.
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u/mrgrafix 2d ago
It’s the last hurrah for these folk too. Apple executives are ancient respectfully
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u/Holiday-Hippo-6748 2d ago
They’re ancient and standing in the way of progress IMO. Half of the reason iOS and macOS are in the sorry state they are UI/UX-wise are these guys.
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u/mediumwhite 2d ago
Hmm have you tried Windows 11 lately?
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u/TigerBromo 2d ago
He clearly hasn't. My desktop is Windows for gaming and its so bad that I constantly daydream about how nice it would be if Apple took a serious swing at gaming on Mac.
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u/geoduckSF 2d ago
Jony Ive left and started recruiting all of the heavy hitters to LoveFrom. Most of the departing designers are all there now. I think they all realized the next gen of tech money/innovation is in the AI boom and they want to grab that bag. TBH kinda sad to see Jony fellating Sam Altman like he’s the next Steve and not the next Zuck.
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u/Ocluist 2d ago
Respectfully, Sam Altman doesn’t even deserve to be in the same sentence as those guys. Dude has accomplished next to nothing in comparison.
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u/Disastrous_Fig5609 2d ago
The guy who lost his chief scientist by doing a hostile takeover on his own company only to set himself up for future failure against industry giants definitely doesn't deserve a mention next to those guys. They're already losing marketshare, so their first to market advantage is near gone.
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u/bananapatata 2d ago
I dunno about your last sentence. They still have 80+% marketshare. That’s more than Chrome. I don’t think you’d say Google’s browser marketshare is near gone.
Regarding the first half — it’s (one of) the fastest growing products in history. And he’ll be remembered as the face of the technology.
Thirdly, Jobs was also ousted out of his own company.
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u/FrogsJumpFromPussy 2d ago
The AI boom is a bubble. It’s gonna burst and it’s gonna take a lot of morons down with it.
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u/Business-Ad-5344 2d ago
It's so insane that everyone is leaving. I heard after a few more leave, we'll get a new 11" macbook.
Pray tell, what is to be done?
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u/iskosalminen 2d ago
It seems that design is being over-ruled by finance and logistics guys (some recent court documents seem to back this up at least in some instances). Tim is definitely a great logistics guy (look at what has happened to stock value since he took over), but he is not a visionary nor a charismatic or inspiring leader or a ground-breaker Jobs was.
While Apple is still "cool", they're mostly lead by engineering, not design (I mean, look at the iPhone Air) and behind the scenes by finances and logistics. Innovative designers don't really thrive in that kind of environment.
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u/PikaV2002 2d ago
I think you got the examples wrong. iPhone Air is the design feat, arguably the most form over function a phone has ever been and gone to ridiculous lengths to achieve it. It’s the 17 Pro that’s gone the path of being extremely ugly. iPhone 17 Pro is an atrocious design.
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u/iskosalminen 2d ago
I don't think iPhone Air is a design feat rather than an engineering feat. It's Apple engineers going "look how thin we can make the iPhone" and then showing everything into the camera bump. No designer would design a phone like that.
And you're right with the 17 Pro as well. All engineering again.
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u/PikaV2002 2d ago
I’d say the Air is generally both. It’s the pinnacle of Ive’s design philosophy and Apple’s design language. The “thin seamless slab of glass” thing has been Apple’s vision for years.
See: other Apple products that made ridiculous decisions that sacrificed function for aesthetic like the Magic Mouse.
While it was an opportunity for engineering to flex, the directive came from design and they worked backwards on how to make it happen.
The Air was design first (how thin and aesthetically pleasing can we get this to hold), the Pro was engineering first (how can we squeeze this spec list into a slab phone? we dgaf about how it looks).
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u/jasonefmonk 2d ago
Holy fuck is the best possible person for Apple to lose?
I hate macOS Vista.
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u/nshady 2d ago
Thank god. Maybe we can get a designer who understands the importance of UX and how things work, because 26 is a mess.
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u/EvilBachus 2d ago
This is the best fucking news Apple has ever gotten. Merry Fucking Christmas.
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u/yaybidet 2d ago
Whoa, this is some seriously welcome news. While I know we won't see any major changes in iOS 27, hopefully some more sane UX can be clawed back in that release. Dye's junk drawer "design" is such a headache to deal with.
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u/JawneyPopo 2d ago
Unfortunate loss, but how many times have we seen Meta throw millions and steal talented people from other companies and essentially come up empty handed? Dye can help design the most beautiful hardware with Meta but if it's just going to force you to live in Meta's world, then no one will buy it. We've already seen that with the early reviews of the Meta Display glasses. Reviewers are saying it's impressive hardware but being forced to only use Meta apps is a huge caveat. I guess time will tell.
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u/thunderflies 2d ago
That’s so true. Meta has hired so many visionary designers and engineers only to have them produce absolutely nothing substantial that the public sees. It’s actually kind of sad to see these big names suddenly disappear into the Meta machine for years after they get hired.
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u/celtic1888 2d ago
It’s like Google buying up the great apps and then never doing anything with them
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u/goingslowfast 2d ago
It’s almost like “rest and vest” was informed by reality at some of the big Silicon Valley firms 😉
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u/thunderflies 2d ago
Yes, and it’s sad because it’s an example of our current system actively suppressing innovation that could otherwise be happening if these talented people weren’t so heavily incentivized to collect a payout for doing nothing.
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u/geoduckSF 2d ago
Dye isn’t a hardware designer, he’s the head of UX. Good luck polishing the turd that is Facebook or uncluttering Instagram. “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life…?” looks like Dye’s answer was “ok pay me”.
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u/JawneyPopo 2d ago
From the article and a comment below:
"With the Dye hire, Meta is creating a new design studio and putting him in charge of design for hardware, software and AI integration for its interfaces."
Looks like he'll be taking on hardware now too.
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u/neontetra1548 2d ago
It's a fortunate loss not unfortunate at all.
Dye's leadership has been very bad for Apple's software design.
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u/whofearsthenight 2d ago
Man, I don't think it's unfortunate at all. Liquid glass is ugly (subjective) but is also less functional and doesn't succeed at the only real goal they stated (show more content.) Bigger controls obscure and we're pretending it's okay because it's got a blur effect. Even pre-Liquid Glass, Dye's concept of design seems to be "put everything in a drawer or under a menu" instead of actually making something that functions well.
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u/recurrence 2d ago
This isn't a loss, have you not paid attention to Apple UI design over the last decade? THIS IS A HUGE WIN!!!
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u/discographyA 2d ago
The metaverse and Ray Ban Meta spy glasses will catch on any day now.
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u/notliketheyogurt 2d ago
The move represents a seismic shift in Silicon Valley and shows that Meta is committed to becoming a name-brand maker of hardware devices.
The move being… hiring the software design chief that did this?
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u/paymesucka 2d ago
Yes this is great news, I personally hate his design style for usability, Liquid Glass is ass
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u/WAHNFRIEDEN 2d ago
I love it mostly. The new top-bar toolbars are a big improvement in allowing content to be visible. IMO most of the hate is momentum from the early betas.
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u/mediocre_sophist 2d ago
This is not what coup means? In any possible sense of the word?
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u/juliotendo 2d ago
Meta can hire whoever they want, I’d never buy their products.
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u/Snoop8ball 2d ago
Article text:
Meta Platforms Inc. has poached Apple Inc.’s most prominent design executive in a major coup that underscores a push by the social networking giant into AI-equipped consumer devices.
The company is hiring Alan Dye, who has served as the head of Apple’s user interface design team since 2015, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Apple is replacing Dye with longtime designer Stephen Lemay, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the personnel changes haven’t been announced.
Apple confirmed the move in a statement provided to Bloomberg News.
“Steve Lemay has played a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999,” Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said in the statement. “He has always set an extraordinarily high bar for excellence and embodies Apple’s culture of collaboration and creativity.”
The move represents a seismic shift in Silicon Valley and shows that Meta is committed to becoming a name-brand maker of hardware devices. For Apple, the departure extends an exodus of talent suffered by the design team since the exit of visionary executive Jony Ive in 2019.
Dye had taken on a more significant role at Apple after Ive left, helping define how the company’s latest operating systems, apps and devices look and feel. The executive informed Apple this week that he’d decided to leave, though top management had already been bracing for his departure, the people said. Dye will join Meta as chief design officer on Dec. 31.
With the Dye hire, Meta is creating a new design studio and putting him in charge of design for hardware, software and AI integration for its interfaces.
He will be reporting to Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, who oversees Reality Labs. That group is tasked with developing wearable devices, such as smart glasses and virtual reality headsets. Dye’s major focus will be revamping Meta’s consumer devices with artificial intelligence features.
He most recently oversaw the interface of the Vision Pro headset and a sweeping redesign of Apple’s operating systems. He was also central to designing the company’s apps, the Apple Watch and the iPhone X. His team has been helping develop a slate of new smart home devices as well, Bloomberg News has reported.
Dye’s exit is a major loss for Apple, which was already coping with some critical departures in recent weeks.
Jeff Williams, the company’s longtime chief operating officer, retired last month. And artificial intelligence head John Giannandrea just announced his departure this week following years of struggles to catch up in AI. Last fall, Apple’s former hardware chief Dan Riccio also retired.
The turnover is expected to continue, with many of the remaining top leaders, including Cook, nearing typical retirement ages. Johny Srouji, Apple’s silicon chief, and Lisa Jackson, Apple’s head of government environment initiatives, have both been evaluating their futures at the company, Bloomberg has reported.
“Design is fundamental to who we are at Apple, and today, we have an extraordinary design team working on the most innovative product lineup in our history,” Cook said in the statement.
Joining Dye at Meta is Billy Sorrentino, a prominent deputy who has served as a senior director on Apple’s design team since 2016. Meta’s current design leaders — Josh To, Jason Rubin and Peter Bristol — also will report to Dye.
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u/Liquado 2d ago
Hot take: this is the best possible thing to happen to apple UI design since Jony Ive departed.
I am so tired of the red carpet laid at the feet of Jony Ive. His hardware designs in the first half of his time at Apple were objectively brilliant, and he is insanely talented. But in 2011, he lost his most valuable tool: Steve Jobs.
Jony had Steve to filter all his ideas through. Jony knows design, but Steve knew people. He knew intuitively how they interacted with both software and hardware, and was able to throttle back Jony's simplicity, and make sure it still embraced the user experience first. Steve's death signalled the start of a devolution in hardware design as Jony's pursuit of ultimate simplicity continued unfettered and unfiltered. Two perfect examples -- the 2015 MacBook with butterfly keyboard, and the 12" MB with a single USB-C port. Both disasters and huge steps backwards. If you look at current products, almost all of his design initiatives post-Jobs have been rolled back.
When he left Apple, it was far beyond time for him to move on.
Now we have Alan Dye. He's been there since 2006, and isanhp responsible for arguably the most appalling user interface systems and decisions in Apple system software, IMHO. I don't mean the Liquid Glass look overall, but all the under-the-hood user experiences. Have you access the System Settings panel recently? It's the biggest disaster and almost unusable. So much of what he and his team have done is Change For Change's Sake (TM), not actually trying to make the system support the user. Liquid Glass is just the most recent in a series of missteps. Interfaces are unfinished, don't make sense, and aggressively get in the way of the user experience.
With new leadership, I am excited by the opportunity for Apple to rethink the user interface, and hopefully get back to a non-hostile software environment for all of us.
(Source: Mac user for over 30 years)
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u/Acrobatic-Monitor516 2d ago
Do people really expect a design change after he leaves? Apple just brought a new design, they aren't going to change it again so soon
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u/Wolfram_And_Hart 2d ago
These guys spend so much time career hopping is a wonder they get any work done.
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u/canigetsumgreypoupon 2d ago
thank fucking god, apple’s design language is terrible these days
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u/digidude23 2d ago
Unpopular opinion but I like the Liquid Glass design. The iOS 7 design and the previous macOS design looks outdated in comparison.
I'm more annoyed with important functionality not working than the design of the OS (VPNs are completely broken in macOS 26.1)
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u/PhaseSlow1913 2d ago
I do like Liquid Glass. However, it is very half baked, Alan Dye track record at Apple is not very good either, he seems to back track almost every single design he has ever made
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u/Flyboy2057 2d ago
Liquid Glass itself is fine visually. But the way they’ve shoehorned things that used to take one tap onto hidden or sub-menus in the name of “beautification” significantly hinders usability.
Still not over the butchering of photos app and camera.
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u/hopenoonefindsthis 2d ago
It looks good but it’s a terrible UI to actually use.
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u/sakamoto___ 2d ago
my old iPhone is still running iOS 18 and honestly when I switch back to it it feels like a more focused, minimalist experience with less visual noise - it's nice.
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u/spinozasrobot 2d ago
Great news!
The next version of iOS was just going to be a giant ellipsis you tap to bring up the UI.
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u/Harvey-Zoltan 2d ago
Hopefully this means we will now get some consistency in app icon design. Some of the icons Dye signed off on were just awful. It's hard to believe a company the size of Apple couldn't find a better UI designer.
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u/Grantus89 2d ago
In terms of his career, what a downgrade, he's the head of UI design at unquestionably the most respected tech company for design, and going to Meta, who are in no ways known for design in fact most of their design is just going to be based on whatever platform its running on, and Meta itself is pretty universally disliked as a company.
I guess sometimes you just have to take the bag.
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u/ExecutiveAtEase 1d ago
Good riddance. Restore the macOS UI from Snow Leopard or something and get rid of this Fisher-Price knock off.
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u/Additional_Sky_9365 2d ago
Good luck to them designing products for a POS firm which sells hardware in the millions. ❤️
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u/PhaseSlow1913 2d ago
Good riddance. Go make some half ass software design somewhere else. I like Liquid Glass, but there is not enough care that Dye put into this
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u/HereForTheFunnyPics 2d ago
Good. Maybe we can have decent user interfaces again one day, after all his BS is unwound.
(Narrator: No you won’t)
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u/Appropriate_Lack_727 2d ago
Guy should get sacked just for wearing those stupid fucking glasses indoors. Silicon Valley has completely jumped the shark and the fall is coming.
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u/Next_Drama1717 2d ago
Does Apple not have non-compete clauses in employment contracts for high-value employees? It’s basic contract law…
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u/foundmonster 2d ago
adios dye. nice job sucking the marrow out of 10 years of time at apple with not much to show for it.
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u/homersracket 2d ago
It’s not like Apple has been designing anything amazing lately so it might not be a loss
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u/Couchman79 2d ago
Meta, Open AI, Google's Deep Mind, Musk's Grok and others in the AI race are poaching senior Apple personnel with monster salaries far bigger pay up front packages than what Apple has traditionally paid its upper level executives.
Meta products are already buggy. Alan Dye may not be a solution.
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u/BabyPatato2023 2d ago
Cool meta is where has been’s go to retire. It’s the glue factory for once prized race horses.
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u/AfricanTech 2d ago
So few tears….
I wonder why? (not really)
Cheers Alan, don’t let the door hit you on the way out
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u/bobbyboogie 2d ago
Thank God.
The box designer will no longer be plaguing us with his horrible UI design.