It's really difficult for me to see Newson's work as anything but very, very anachronistic. His formal language seems to me to be hopelessly trapped in the 90s.<p>That being said, his range is impressive. He's capable of working in many different scales and materials. Beside the fact that he's a friend of Ive's, this seems like the best argument for him being a good fit at Apple.
Slideshow of some of Newson's designs:<p><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/09/marc-newson-designs-pentax" rel="nofollow">http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/09/marc-newson-design...</a><p>Newson's timepiece designs, from his own website:<p><a href="http://www.marc-newson.com/ProjectCategorys.aspx?GroupSelected=0&Category=Timepieces" rel="nofollow">http://www.marc-newson.com/ProjectCategorys.aspx?GroupSelect...</a>
If I were running Apple, I'd be more worried about becoming great at online services (cloud, auth, security, identity) rather than doubling down on their expertise in fashion and user interface.<p>This is probably just some poorly timed high-profile acquisitions (Beats) and hires (Dre, Iovine, Ahrendts, Newson), though. I'm sure this occurs to them as well...