Meta poached Apple’s top design guys to overhaul its software user interface

She rose dead A big step to hire two prominent designers away from the rival tech giant applelikely to push them to work on designing the next generation of AI hardware and the software that runs on them for Meta.

He will be joined by Alan Dye, former vice president of human interface design at Apple dead to head up a new design studio within Meta’s Reality Labs. Billy Sorrentino, a senior manager on Apple’s design team (and formerly… WIRED Creative Director) will also join Meta’s Reality Labs.

in job On Meta Threads, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the two will lead the new studio and “bring design, fashion and technology together to define the next generation of our products and experiences.” In his own Instagram post, Sorrentino He confirmed the news. (In response to a request for comment from WIRED, a Meta rep pointed to Threads posts by Zuckerberg and the Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth.)

Dye has long been a prominent figure on Apple’s design team, leading big pushes like watchOS and, to some extent, Apple Vision Pro. controversial Liquid Glass redesign for iOS 26, which designers described as beautiful but “It’s hard to read“His shift to Meta telegraph signals the Zuckerberg-run company’s thirst to restore Apple’s dominance in interaction design, even if it also makes some people wary. Joke about him What would the Liquid Glass guy do with the Meta Design interface.

Anshil Saj, A Technical analyst At Moor Insights & Strategy, he says that more than anything else, the move signals a move by Meta to fix the annoying and unattractive UI across its platforms.

“Meta has always been a programming nightmare,” Sage says. “There’s a lot of inconsistency across all Meta software platforms. Facebook, Insta, WhatsApp, Quest — they didn’t have the highest quality standards. This is especially true of the UI. If they want users to stay on their platform, they’re going to have to fix the UI.”

The move comes as Meta continues to move forward Absolutely everything For its efforts in the field of artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, Meta poured seemingly endless money into its efforts for its so-called Superintelligence Lab, which aims to build a team of highly paid AI stars to advance the company’s machine intelligence goals. (Tenants I started leaving Barely a month later.) Meanwhile, Mita is also thinking Major budget cuts For the efforts of Reality Labs.

Above all, the company has aggressively moved into AI-powered smart gases, cornering the market with Ray-Ban Meta lenses. And here comes Zuckerberg’s new interest in design and fashion, considering that the Meta smart glasses have achieved no small success due to the sharp designs of the frames made by its partner EssilorLuxottica. People won’t wear smart glasses, no matter how powerful, if they look stupid. (Case in point are the new Meta Ray Ban Display Glasses, which are very sturdy but… Looks real chunky.) Clearly, focusing on sleeker designs has become a key priority at Meta. But more importantly, make the devices work well together.