Evans Hankey has been in charge of Apple’s hardware design for three years, but she is now leaving the company according to a new report from Mark Gurman:
The departure was announced inside the Cupertino, California-based technology giant this week, with Hankey telling colleagues that she will remain at Apple for the next six months. The company hasn’t named a replacement. Hankey oversees dozens of industrial designers.
Her pending exit marks the first time that Apple will be without a de facto design chief since Apple co-founder Steve Jobs retook control of the company in the late 1990s and appointed Ive to the job. Richard Howarth, a key designer on both Ive and Hankey’s teams, briefly held the role of head of industrial design, reporting to Ive, between 2015 and 2017.
“Apple’s design team brings together expert creatives from around the world and across many disciplines to imagine products that are undeniably Apple,” a spokesman said in a statement. “The senior design team has strong leaders with decades of experience. Evans plans to stay on as we work through the transition, and we’d like to thank her for her leadership and contributions.”
With the timelines and collaboration at Apple, it’s always a bit tricky to place responsibility for a decision on any one person, but for whatever input Hankey had in the design of the Apple silicon Mac line up, I’m thankful for.