Apple Insider Reveals: Alan Dye’s Departure Seen as Positive Move Within the Company

Last night, Apple announced the departure of its designer Alan Dye, who will be joining Meta as the head of design at the end of December. Until now, Dye was the second-in-command at Apple’s Cupertino design studio, overseeing software interfaces under Molly Anderson. His team was credited with developing Liquid Glass, a new glass-based interface that debuted this year on iOS 26, macOS 26, and all of Apple’s systems.

According to John Gruber, a well-informed source, Dye’s unexpected departure and the appointment of Steve Lemay were very well received in Cupertino. « At Apple, today’s announcement is almost too good to be true. We had given up hope of Dye leaving, and no one expected him to leave voluntarily. (When you are involved in design, leaving Apple is usually a step down. What we overlooked is the obvious: Alan Dye doesn’t really care about design.) »

John Gruber notes that Alan Dye originally came from the advertising and marketing world, not interfaces. It was Jony Ive who appointed him to lead Apple’s interface design in 2015, around the time of the Apple Watch launch, which was Apple’s first real foray into the fashion world. It seemed like a smart move at the time, but it may have led to problems later on. On the other hand, Steve Lemay has spent his entire career designing interfaces:

The people I’ve spoken to who have worked with him at Apple speak very highly of him, particularly praising his attention to detail and expertise. These qualities were sorely missing during Dye’s tenure. Not everyone may appreciate Lemay’s work, but no one is perfect, and designers often criticize their peers’ work. I’ve spoken with people who had criticisms about specific projects of Lemay’s at Apple (for example, some aspects of multitasking in iPadOS which seemed intentionally restrictive rather than liberating), but everyone I talked to is thrilled, even ecstatic, that Lemay is replacing Dye. Lemay is highly respected and his talent is universally acknowledged. A well-informed source said: « I don’t think there could have been a better choice than Lemay. »

Will we see a shift in Apple’s interfaces? It’s very likely, opines John Gruber who, with typical restraint, stated that « it could be the best thing to happen to Apple’s user interface design since the death of Steve Jobs and the departure of Scott Forstall. »