Last night Apple announced that Scott Forstall, the man who worked for more than a decade at the company, will leave the position of SVP immediately and will remain in an advisor position until next year. Forstall led the team that developed iOS and part of the first iPhone, thanks to him the operating system became so popular, but now the time has come for him to go. After the death of Jobs, Forstall was left without a strong man to defend him, he quarreled with those in the management of Apple, refused to sign the letter by which Apple apologized for iOS 6 Maps, failed to develop Siri and iOS 6 well enough, and has now been forced out.
His place will be taken by Jony Ive, the famous designer who brought us so many extremely well-built, but also extremely beautiful products. Ive will lead the team that will develop the iOS interface (the functionality part will be managed by another SVP) and I think we will have many pleasant surprises in the future. Ive is focused on design, he wants everything to look as beautiful as possible, and almost anything can be done in software, so we can expect a iOS 7 with many interesting changes from this point of view.
Ive has a different vision than Forstall, he is focused on making beautiful and useful things, but although he only deals with the interface part, I am sure that the team that develops the functionality of iOS will find a method to implement everything what Ive has in mind. iOS needs a new face, iOS needs a strong change and Jony Ive can provide it, much easier than Forstall would. I don't think that in iOS 7 we will see a dramatic change in the interface of the operating system, but under Ive's leadership, the iOS interface will look better and become much more attractive even for those who criticized iOS.
Although many will start spinning again saying that Apple is dying, blah, blah, blah, I see this change as a natural one, as one that had to be done and I think it will revive Apple.
