Sir Jony Ive

Sir Jonathan Ive's title at Apple has been simplified—flattened, if you will—from "Senior Vice President, Industrial Design" to "Senior Vice President, Design." By dropping the qualifier, Apple has officially recognized that his role at Apple has greatly expanded.

Sir Jony rose to worldwide fame and acclaim on the strength of his industrial design. He was plucked from the depths of Apple's existing design team by Steve Jobs when he returned to the company he founded in 1996. He was soon put in charge of that design team and has since overseen the industrial design of every piece of hardware Apple makes.

Things changed in October of 2012 when CEO Tim Cook fired Scott Forstall, the man who had been in charge of both the "human interface" (sometimes referred to as "user interface") and engineering side of iOS from the release of the first iPhone.

For the first time, Mr. Cook put one person in charge of the engineering side—Craig Federighi—and another in charge of the human interface—the one and only Jonathan Ive. Last Monday, we saw the fruits of that change when Craig Federighi introduced the brand new "flat" design of iOS 7, an entirely new look and feel for Apple's mobile OS.

Sir Jony's title hadn't changed to reflect his new responsibilities, but Apple has now corrected that. Apple's description of Sir Jonathan also changed. In addition to his education and an abridged list of awards, that page now says:

London-born designer Jonathan Ive is Apple's senior vice president of Design, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. Since 1996, he has been responsible for leading a design team widely regarded as one of the world’s best. As the driving force behind the look and feel of Apple's innovative products, Jony also provides leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) software teams across the company.

With any luck, this means it's a permanent change. We've been delighted with what we saw in iOS 7 as a whole (needed tweaks certainly remain), and look forward to further progress.

[Via 9to5Mac]