Meta poached Apple’s best design guys to fix the software UI

Meta made a big move to poach two prominent designers from rival tech giant Apple, and likely put them to work designing Meta’s next-generation AI hardware and the software that runs on it.

Alan Dye, Apple’s former vice president of Human Interface Design, will join Meta to lead a new design studio within Meta’s Reality Labs. Billy Sorrentino, senior director of Apple’s design team (and former WIRED creative director) will also join Meta’s Reality Labs.

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

Dye has long been a prominent figure on Apple’s design team, leading major developments like watchOS, the Apple Vision Pro, and iOS 26’s somewhat controversial Liquid Glass redesign, which designers called beautiful but “hard to read.” His move to Meta shows the Zuckerberg-run company’s hunger to recreate Apple’s dominance in interaction design, even if it has also led some people Just kidding about that what the Liquid Glass guy is going to do with Meta’s design interface.

Anshel Sag, a technical analyst van Moor Insights & Strategy says this move is mainly an attempt by Meta to fix the often stiff and unattractive user interface across all its platforms.

“Meta has always been a software nightmare,” says Sag. “There’s a lot of inconsistency between all of Meta’s software platforms. Facebook, Insta, WhatsApp, Quest – they don’t have the highest quality standards. That’s especially true of the UI. If they want users to stay on their platform, they’re going to have to fix the UI.”

This move comes as Meta continues to go absolutely all-in in its AI efforts. Earlier this year, Meta poured seemingly endless money into efforts at its so-called Superintelligence lab, which aimed to build a team of highly paid AI superstars to further the company’s machine intelligence goals. (The employees started leaving barely a month later.) At the same time, Meta is also thinking major cuts to the efforts of Reality Labs.

Above all, the company has leaned hard on its AI-powered smart gases, all but cornering the market with its Ray-Ban Meta lenses. This is where Zuckerberg’s new focus on design and fashion comes in, as Meta’s smart glasses have succeeded in large part thanks to the sharp frame designs from its partner EssilorLuxottica. People won’t wear smart glasses, no matter how powerful, if they look stupid. (An example of this is the new Meta Ray Ban Display glasses, which are very powerful but look really chic.) Focusing on more elegant designs has clearly become a priority for Meta. But more importantly: the devices must work well together.