Airbnb Partners With Former Apple Design Chief Jony Ive for Its 'Next-Gen' Products

Airbnb is collaborating with Apple's former designing head Jony Ive to help the company design new products and services over the next few years. Ive, who quit Apple after more than two decades, started his own design firm LoveFrom in 2019. The development was announced by Airbnb chief Brian Chesky on Wednesday. The company states that Airbnb and Ive's LoveFrom have signed a multi-year deal.

At the moment, the exact details of the partnership between Airbnb and LoveFrom remain unclear. According to the Financial Times, the former Apple executive will lead the platform's efforts to revamp its app and website. It was also added that Ive would also redesign Airbnb's ratings-based system and other verticals to help the company that suffered profoundly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ive is best known for his works at Apple that includes designing candy-coloured iMacs and several iPhone models. Meanwhile, Airbnb chief design officer Alex Schleifer will take up a part-time role and that the US-based travel company would be looking for a permanent replacement, according to Reuters.

"Jony will also help us continue to develop our internal design team, which he believes to be one of the world's best. I know he is particularly excited about a relationship that will evolve to become a deep collaboration with our creative team," Airbnb chief said.

Earlier in June, Airbnb said that the company is seeing a "bounce" in bookings as the home-sharing platform unveiled an initiative to promote short-range travel as pandemic restrictions ease. "While the travel industry, including Airbnb, has been hit hard by COVID-19 and there will continue to be tremendous uncertainty, our booking data shows that travel is beginning to bounce back and new survey research has identified a series of trends that will shape travel in the weeks and months to come," the company said in the June post.