Bart Andre has been with Apple since 1992, is Apple’s longest-serving industrial designer, and intends to leave the company soon.
There have been several high-profile departures from Apple’s design team since Jony Ive left in 2019. Ongoing concerns with a culture change and Jeff Williams at the head of the design team seems to have contributed to some departures.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Bart Andre is the latest design head to depart Apple after 32 years on the design team. He was one of Jony Ive’s top lieutenants and helped run things after Evans Hankey left in 2023.
The report suggests there is some “unrest” due to Jeff Williams running the design team and introducing cost-cutting measures. Apple has also allegedly cut back on exploratory projects that Ive was known for when he ran the team.
These concerns seem to be contributing to a kind of “exodus,” as the report calls it. Other former Ive team members, including Colin Burns, Shota Aoyagi, and Peter Russell-Clarke, also left recently.
There are a few employees still at Apple who served on Jony Ive’s core design team. They are Richard Howarth, Molly Anderson, and Duncan Kerr.
The nature of Andre’s departure is unknown, but we’re not sure the classification of “exodus” is fitting. Thirty-two years of work in one of the most demanding design jobs in the world may have earned his retirement.
This story originally appeared on Appleinsider
