For years, critics have praised Apple for its meticulous design while mocking Meta’s hardware and software interfaces as clunky and inconsistent. On December 3–4, that narrative shifted as Meta revealed it had lured away Alan Dye, the man who has effectively overseen Apple’s software look and feel since 2015.
Dye joined Apple almost two decades ago, initially working on marketing and product packaging before moving into legendary designer Jony Ive’s interface group. He helped spearhead the flat redesign of iOS 7, led the visual language for the Apple Watch, contributed to the iPhone X edge-to-edge display era, and more recently played a key role in software for the Vision Pro headset and the “Liquid Glass” design system in iOS 26.
At Meta, Dye will take on the newly created role of chief design officer, reporting to CTO Andrew Bosworth in the company’s Reality Labs division. According to statements from Meta and coverage by multiple outlets, he’ll lead a cross-functional creative studio that brings together interface designers, industrial designers, fashion experts and metaverse art teams. The goal is to create AI-powered wearables—especially smart glasses—that feel as polished and iconic as smartphones once did.
The move doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Meta has already hired several other former Apple designers, including Billy Sorrentino, who will join Dye in the new studio. Meanwhile Apple is promoting veteran designer Stephen Lemay to lead human interface work and grappling with a broader “brain drain” from its AI ranks to rivals like Meta and OpenAI.
Strategically, the hire underscores Meta’s bet that AI wearables—from Ray-Ban smart glasses to future mixed-reality devices—will be the next major computing platform. As generative AI systems become more capable and ubiquitous, the challenge shifts from raw intelligence to experience design: how do you make AI feel natural, human-centered and stylish enough for mainstream users to wear every day?
By bringing in a designer who helped define Apple’s modern aesthetic, Meta is signaling that it doesn’t just want to ship functional gadgets—it wants to build objects people genuinely love. Whether that will be enough to overcome skepticism about privacy, content moderation and the metaverse remains to be seen, but the race for AI hardware talent just got a lot more intense.