Jony Ive has been promoted to the newly created position of chief design officer at Apple. Ive will relinquish his day-to-day managerial duties in order to focus on “current design projects, new ideas and future initiatives,” according to the company. Ive’s managerial duties will be handed off to his two deputies, reports Bloomberg. Richard Howarth will be named VP of industrial design and Alan Dye will become VP of interface design. “In many ways, Jony’s new role is the closest thing yet to the unofficial role that Steve Jobs held at Apple,” suggests analyst Neil Cybart. “With day-to-day managerial duties being handed off to capable team members, Jony now has more time to focus on the big picture.”