Yesterday, Tim Cook participated in a 90 minute or so interview at the AllThingsD D11 conference, and the future of iOS was at the forefront of the many intriguing topics that were discussed between Cook, Kara Swisher, and Walt Mossberg. Cook also revealed something which many have suspected for a long time: Jony Ive is deeply involved in iOS 7, which will be unveiled at their WWDC keynote in June.
“Yes, Jony [Ive] is really key,” Cook said in response to a question about whether the design chief would have his fingerprints on the next version of iOS, due to be unveiled next month.
Cook touted the elegance of a design that melded hardware and software tightly as something that Apple focused on, which was the point of the recent executive shakeup.
“We recognized that Jony had contributed significantly to the look and feel of Apple for many, many years and could do that for software as well, and I think it’s absolutely incredible,” said Cook.
Jony Ive has long been the mastermind behind the majority of Apple’s aesthetically pleasing hardware designs in the past. Ive also recently took on further responsibilities to lead Apple’s human interface team, in a management shuffle that involved Scott Forstall – Apple’s previous VP of iOS, stepping away from Apple altogether.
It’s expected that Jony Ive’s influence will entail bringing a flatter design to iOS 7 (1, 2), removing many of the skeumorphic design elements (designs that mimic real-world objects) that Forstall was apparently fond of. Cook also reiterated Apple’s previous promise that the next versions of both iOS and OS X will be unveiled at WWDC.
iOS 7 should be a tremendously significant update, no matter what actually happens – but as far as details go, we’ll just have to see what Apple shows off on-stage on June 10th!
