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Apple Hires CEO of Yves Saint Laurent To Head Special Projects
alphadogg writes "Apple has hired Paul Deneve, until Tuesday the CEO of French luxury brand Yves Saint Laurent, to work as its vice president for special projects, igniting fresh speculation about possible new product launches including a TV or wearable computing devices such as a smart watch. He'll be reporting directly to CEO Tim Cook. Unsurprisingly, the company doesn't want to elaborate on what kind of special projects Deneve, who has worked at Apple in the past, will be working on. But the hire has resulted in analysts speculating, and wearable computing is on top of the list."
If you don't have anything to report, then don't report. Enough with worthless speculation.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
They could be bringing him on in order to introduce a new brand of perfume.
iSmell.
French designed black-and-white-and-flattened handbags are coming.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
It must be smellable computing! Yeah, stinky computers.
After all, YSL peddles a load of overpriced fragrances.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
He's there to design turtlenecks for Tim and Jony.
Considering that these luxury brands know nothing about practical usability, I can only assume this guy has been hired for some kind of special edition product. If I had to make a random assumption I'd even suggest it's for a China-specific product. The Chinese have a fetish for over-priced ultra-luxury brands on a level Americans can't fathom. It's bad enough that a few years back Louis Vuitton was concerned about the tarnishing of the brand due to increased prevalence of their bags. So they raised prices to keep them out of the hands of the plebeians. In the West, however, outside certain circles these brands don't carry a whole lot of prevalence. I can't imagine the YSL connection being of particular significance for most Apple devotees.
The whole thing is a bit odd given that YSL's foundation is in attire, not product design. They certainly have no experience in anything even remotely practical. If the goal here were some apparel based implementation of Apple's technology there are dozens of other companies better suited to the task. Additionally, those companies would have much more experience in cost-effective sourcing of materials and efficient manufacturing. Not like these luxury brands who burn last year's unsold product so that they can maintain exclusivity.
The practice of hiring renown designers is not unheard of, but companies tend to hire expertise that makes sense for the context. This almost always means that they hire product designers. Several years back, for example, Microsoft was working with Philippe Starck on peripherals. Even in that environment, however, it's often a miss because these designers know far more about aesthetics than about reliability and practicality. They're used to making products that sit untouched and are ogled from afar. Whatever issues arise are usually handled directly by the company and with the level of care you'd expect from a high-priced product. It's a totally different environment than consumer electronics. The optical mouse created under the Microsoft/Starck union looks cool, but was generally considered to be crap.
That said, Apple doesn't really need outside help to value form over function. Remember the puck mouse? How about the current piece of shit Magic Mouse? We've also all seen the new Mac Pro. What's concerning is the picture this paints for the company. It's not a big deal in the scheme of things if this is really just for a special edition product. However, if this is where they're looking to define future trends for the company I think we're seeing the beginning of the end. That's the sort of crap OEMs engage in when they're tring to build a reputation for themselves by coming up with goofy co-branded products.
A lot of Apple products are basically luxuries, and without directly admitting it, most of their marketing strategies have been similar to those for luxury products, so this sounds like a perfect match.
Also, of course Apple is experiementing with wearable computing, they probably have been experimenting with it for a decade or two. Apple doesn't bring products to market until they are ready. The problem with wearable computing is that the interface and display tends to be minute, and glasses can only fix one of those problems. I also imagine that all the great things we've been told wearable computing could do would be massive battery hogs. If they get it to be marketable, we will see it. Otherwise, we won't.
They should have hired Jean-Paul Gaultier, he did all the costumes for The Fifth Element.
The Laurent designs for Daft Punk are at least comparably futuristic:
http://www.canto-photographer.com/daft-punk-yves-saint-laurent/
Not that this guy they hired to VP is a designer, but he has worked with designers, and he is a member of the executive committee of the French Federation of Fashion and of Ready-to-Wear of Couturiers and Fashion Designers, and a jury member for the ANDAM Fashion Awards.
Perhaps they are trying to get someone with taste to select from the many designs Jon Ivy comes up with for new products. Steve used to have him designed 12 versions of something, mocked them up, picked 2 to build out working prototypes, and then pick one. It was Steve's discrimination that made Apple products great, and maybe they are now trying to recreate it? If so, both "good for them" and "about damn time".
the new Mac Pro design is anything but boring
It's anything but good too.
I mean, unless you want exactly what's in the can it comes in. Then its great.
But usually people ordering desktop workstations want a higher degree of control over what is inside it, and above all they don't want to be ripped off.
I expect the Mac Pro will be plausible value for what is in it the day its released, but it won't be refreshed anywhere nearly fast enough, while the price will be held the same, until like the last mac pro you end up shaking your head that they would even try to charge that cutting edge price for technology that was 1 to 2 generations behind what you could get from anyone else.
The most anybody usually upgrades a graphics workstation (what this is mainly meant for) is expanding RAM
That precisely because that's the ONLY thing its any good at. By not giving us more flexibility its too expensive / ill suited to be anything else.
CPU and graphics are usually pretty stable, upgraded at the next machine purchase, although sometimes graphics is updated (and Apple is seriously future-proofing that with dual integrated cards)
Quite the contrary. Graphics, in a graphics workstation might get upgraded annually or every 2 years. That's a fraction of what I'd expect the base platform to last. Apple has shot that in the foot with completely custom form factor cards.
. Storage? Anybody who does any type of serious work wouldn't use in-machine storage anyway, so why bother putting it in the machine? They'd use a fast connection to external storage like a SAN.
What if they already have a SAN? What if they need fibrechannel? What if -gasp- they want a desktop computer for something that isn't a "graphics workstation"? Can I buy a thunderbolt to 16gbps fibrechannel adapter? In theory thunderbolt can do the speed... but does the adapter exist? At what price? I mean the only people on the planet who are likely to need a 16gbps fibrechannel to thunderbolt 2 adapter are people who bought a new mac pro and already have a SAN...
Now I -know- I'm in the minority, but I still regularly work with proprietary stuff accessed via PCI and PCI-express boards. So now I'm getting what? A thunderbolt to pci-express expansion chassis for each one. Yeah... that costs as much as a regular PC.
Or I can just buy a normal machine with expansion slots.