Walter Isaacson on Jony Ive's Departure From Apple [Video]

Walter Isaacson, the author of the popular authorized Steve Jobs biography, weighed in on the departure of Jony Ive from Apple in an interview with CNBC.

When asked if he thought that some of what Jobs had and what Ive has delivered at Apple has been transformed into Tim Cook, Isaacson revealed that Jobs had expressed to him that Cook was 'not a product person'.


"In my book and I softened it in the book, in the book a bit I sometimes soften things I felt were too hard but in my book Steve says almost what you just did - how Tim Cook can do everything
can do this but then he looked at me and said, 'but Tim's not a product person'."

"Sometimes Steve when he was in pain and it was problematic and he was angry he would say more things then he was not a product person and I felt I would put in the specific things that were relevant to the readers but not the complaints of what he felt."

Isaacson believes that Apple missed putting out some great products as it focused on building Apple Park which he describes as the only great design Apple has done in the past 15 years.

"I think that you could have created an amazing Apple TV, an end-to-end integrated product that was both the hardware and software and the content which is what Steve did in every other industry from the iPhone to the iPod that he went into. You could've created a camera that was truly an awesome piece of design."


Isaacson also commented on the WSJ story that Ive had checked out and Tim Cook's response calling it 'absurd'.

"He did not deny any specific thing in that article. He did not say you're wrong about that meeting or you're wrong about that product or you're wrong about Jony Ive not doing this or you're wrong about Jony not being here. He said the article is wrong because it misunderstands the new culture at Apple."

"I also found as interesting that Jony Ive didn't say a word. If you've read that story, it has what our friend Dr. Kissinger would say is the 'odious smell of truth', paragraph after paragraph."

Take a look at the full interview in the video below!