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The new arrangement spared Mr. Ive the regular commute to the company’s offices in Cupertino. He moved from nearly daily product reviews to an irregular schedule where he would go weeks without being weighed down. Sometimes news would spread in the studio that he would unexpectedly come to the office. Employees compared the moments following old footage of the 1920s stock market crash, with papers being thrown into the air and people running around in a furious rush to prepare for its arrival.
With the anticipated surge on Wall Street for the 10th anniversary iPhone in early 2017, Mr. Ive summoned the company’s top software designers to San Francisco for a product review. A team of about 20 came to The Battery, the city’s private social club, and began spreading the output of 11-by-17-inch design ideas in the club’s loft. They needed Mr. Ive’s approval for various features on the first full-screen iPhone.
They waited for Mr. Ive for about three hours that day. When he finally arrived, he didn’t apologize. He reviewed his outputs and provided feedback. He then left without making any final decisions. When their business stopped, many wondered: How did it come to be?
In Mr. Ive’s absence, Mr. Cook began to reshape the company in his own image. The talented marketer who built the Gap and J. Crew brought in James Bell, Boeing’s former chief of finance, to replace outgoing company director Mickey Drexler. Mr. Ive was furious that a left-brained executive had replaced one of the board’s few right-brained leaders. “One more of those accountants,” he complained to a colleague.
Mr. Cook also encouraged the company’s finance department, which began auditing outside contractors. At one point, the department rejected a legitimate bill submitted by architecture firm Foster + Partners, which worked closely with Mr. Ive to complete Apple Park, the company’s new $5 billion campus.
In the midst of these struggles, Mr. Cook began expanding Apple’s strategy to sell more services. During a corporate retreat in 2017, when an Apple newcomer named Peter Stern stepped in front of the company’s top leaders, Mr. Ive stepped outside for some fresh air. Mr. Stern clicked on the slide of an X-shaped chart that showed Apple’s profit margins from sales of iPhone, iPad and Mac fell, while profit margins increased from sales of software and services like iCloud storage.
The presentation alarmed some in the audience. It depicted a future in which Mr. Ive and the company’s job as a product maker would be less important and more important for Mr. Cook to place more and more emphasis on services like Apple Music and iCloud.
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