Bloomberg reports a major personnel change: Alan Dye, Apple's vice president who led the design of iOS 7 to iOS 17, Apple Watch interface, and Vision Pro interaction, has confirmed his departure and will join Meta as Vice President of AR/VR Design, directly reporting to CTO Andrew Bosworth. His mission is to infuse AI interaction experiences into the Quest series and smart glasses.
According to sources, Meta offered "head of device design + significant equity incentives" to attract Dye, who brings ten years of Apple UI/UX patent and supply chain experience. Earlier this year, it was reported that Meta had attempted to poach OpenAI researchers, and now adding Dye, the "design brain," clearly shows its accelerated strategy in consumer-level AI hardware.
Apple responded quickly. CEO Tim Cook announced in an internal email on the same day that Steve Lemay, the former senior director of interface design, was promoted to Global User Interface Leader, filling Dye's vacancy. Lemay joined Apple in 1999 and participated in the design of every major interface for Mac OS X, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. Cook called him the "soul guardian of Apple's experience."
Wall Street analysts pointed out that Dye's move gives Meta a key talent in AR/VR human-computer interaction, while Apple must rely on Lemay's deep experience to maintain its advantage in hardware-software integration. As the AI hardware battle intensifies, the flow of high-level talents in Silicon Valley may become even more intense.
