Last October, Tim Cook tasked Jony Ive with leadership of the company's Human Interface teams in addition to his role as head of Industrial Design. This suggested that the company's hardware and software user interfaces could become more complimentary with one executive in charge of everything that users see and touch. The Wall Street Journal reports that this is indeed the case, with mobile software teams being briefed about new hardware prototypes earlier in the design cycle. Additionally, Ive is now sitting in on the human interface team's review sessions to examine new designs. So
