Say hello to Carol Surface, the new Apple Chief People Officer. Photo: Medtronic
Carol Surface is reportedly stepping in as Apple’s new Chief People Officer, the company’s term for head of human resources.
She’s taking over part of the responsibilities of Deirdre O’Brien who was previously both the HR chief and in charge of managing Apple’s retail store business.
Apple apparently does not plan to replace departing industrial design chief Evans Hankey. Photo: Adrian Regeci/Unsplash License
Apple reportedly stopped looking for a replacement industrial design chief. This is surprising, as it’s a high-profile position once held by Jony Ive, who led the team that created the iconic look of the iPhone, iMac and more.
The corporate rearrangement increases the power of Jeff Williams — Apple’s chief operating officer and possibly Tim Cook’s eventual replacement as CEO.
Ford took the Apple car chief, now Cupertino takes another veteran leader from Ford. Photo: Peter Trones/Unsplash License
Accelerating work on its self-driving electric vehicle project, Apple recruited veteran Ford engineer and executive Desi Ujkashevic to join the team.
The move comes after various stalls and road bumps in Cupertino’s secretive Project Titan in recent years, including Ford luring away Apple car chief Doug Field last year.
Someone who lead the switch to the M series of processors jumped ship to Intel. Photo: Apple
The person responsible for overseeing the transition from Intel to Apple silicon left the company. Jeff Wilcox was Director, Mac System Architecture before his departure.
He summed up his previous role by saying he “led the transition for all Macs to Apple Silicon beginning with M1 chip.” That was one of the most important projects at Apple in recent years, though it’s one that’s wrapping up.
Tim Cook’s compensation package for 2021 is more than 6x what it was in the previous year. Illustration: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
It’s good to be the CEO — Apple chief executive Tim Cook was paid $98.7 million in 2021. That’s a combination of a base salary, an incentive plan and other compensation, but the lion’s share is in Apple stock.
Other top Apple executives also have 8-figure annual compensation packages, if not anywhere close to Cook’s.
In some people’s misguided memories, Jobs did no wrong. Ever. And members of this reality-challenged group — let’s call it the Church of Steve Jobs — frequently post comments on social media like, “Apple would be so much better if Steve Jobs were still in charge.”
But in reality, Jobs made plenty of mistakes. Here are some of his worst foul-ups.
The man reportedly running Apple car development has taken an exit. Photo illustration: Cult of Mac/Wikipedia CC
Development of an Apple car just hit another speed bump. Doug Field, who’d reportedly been managing the project, just left to join the Ford Motor Company.
This is surely a blow to Apple’s secretive automotive efforts. And the company was already multiple years away from having anything to put in a showroom, according to the latest leaks.
Tim Cook is in 8th place on Bloomberg‘s list of highest paid CEOs and executives. Illustration: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple CEO Tim Cook is one of the best paid U.S. executives according to a new report. He pulled in a whopping $265 million in 2020 from his salary, bonus, and stock awards.
But that’s chump change compared to what Elon Musk made.
Since he came out as gay eight years ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook has led the company through the most successful period in its history. Cook once said he wanted to prove you can “be gay and still go on and do some big jobs in life.” He’s certainly done that.
But maybe there’s more to this story than overcoming prejudice. In 2018, Cook told CNN that being gay is “God’s greatest gift to me.” Far from a disadvantage, could being gay actually be an instrumental part of his success?
As a gay man myself, Cook has always been an inspiration for me. So to celebrate Pride Month, here’s why I think being gay made him a better CEO.
Apple is exploring alternative payment systems, and the magic word “cryptocurrency” came up. Photo: Apple/Cult of Mac
A job opening at Apple for an “Alternative Payments” business manager set off a wave of speculation that the iPhone-maker is getting into cryptocurrency.
It’s apparently a change of heart by CEO Tim Cook, who’s on the record as being opposed to privately controlled currencies.
A new head of design means Apple will offer plenty more headphones to follow these Beats PowerBeats. Photo: Apple
The reports of Beats’ death are (reportedly) greatly exaggerated. Rather than phasing out the brand, as had been rumored, Apple put Scott Croyle, the former head of product design at phone-maker HTC, in charge of crafting new Beats headphones, according to an unconfirmed report.
April 29, 1997: Steve Jobs’ friend Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, calls off his bid to take over Apple.
Ellison’s plan is to reinstall Jobs, who is then just an adviser to Apple CEO Gil Amelio, as the company’s chief executive. He also wants to take Apple private again.
What is top Apple hardware engineer Dan Riccio up to now? Photo: Apple
Dan Riccio, one of Apple’s top designers, is moving to a mysterious new role in Cupertino.
After joining Apple in 1998, Riccio worked on loads of groundbreaking products, from the first iMac to last year’s AirPods Max and the M1-powered Macs. Now, he’s become Apple’s “vice president of engineering.”
Going forward, Riccio says he will be “focusing all my time and energy at Apple on creating something new and wonderful that I couldn’t be more excited about,” according to a press release Monday.
The Apple autonomous vehicle project is now part of the company’s AI division. Illustration: Cult of Mac
Apple’s self-driving car division is reportedly on the move, but not in the usual way. The project has been transferred into Apple’s artificial intelligence division.
The reorg comes at the retirement of Bob Mansfield, who’d been managing the company’s not-so-secret autonomous vehicle development.
Tim Cook remembers his friend and former boss. Photo: BBC TV
Tim Cook quoted poet Maya Angelou in a tweet commemorating Steve Jobs on Monday, the ninth anniversary of the Apple co-founder’s death.
“A great soul never dies,” Cook’s message reads. “It brings us together again and again.” Cook also added a personal note: “You’re always with us Steve, your memory connects and inspires us every day.”
Meanwhile, on the Apple website, admirers’ remembrances of Jobs flowed across a tribute page.
For long-time Apple fans like myself, Tuesday marked the end of an era. Phil Schiller stepped down from his role as VP of worldwide marketing.
Schiller was the last of the OG — a stalwart onstage companion to Steve Jobs, long before it was fashionable to watch Apple keynotes. Schiller was there at all the seminal moments in Apple history, including the launch of iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Back in the day, he and Jobs were a remarkable double act. Jobs would announce the products, and then Schiller would stride in to perform the demos.
Fortunately, Schiller’s not gone for good. In his new role as an Apple Fellow, he will still keep an eye on the App Store and Apple Events. But I wanted to take this opportunity to remember the man, the legend, that is Phil Schiller. Here are the top 10 reasons why I’ll miss him.
With Apple TV+ ready to compete against Disney+, Bob Iger resigned from the Apple board. Photo: Josh Hallett/Flickr CC
The Apple board of directors just lost a powerful member: Disney CEO Bob Iger. His resignation, revealed by an Apple filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, comes as Disney and Apple prepare to launch competing streaming services.
Meanwhile, the new Disney offering garnered a rave early review that called it “more addictive than heroin.”
The iPhone X had a "rough development cycle." Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Jony Ive began to drift away from Apple shortly after the Apple Watch launched, a new report claims. The Apple design chief’s waning enthusiasm caused problems during development of the iPhone X and other products.
Following news that Ive is finished at Apple (at least as a full-time employee), this account backs up earlier reports stating that he had had one foot out the door for a while. In some cases, Ive’s long goodbye made things difficult for his co-workers.
The "fiddle factor" is the tactile magic of Apple design. Cover: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
What will Apple miss most as design chief Jony Ive spacewalks out of the spaceship campus? We think it’s the “fiddle factor” he injected into all his best Apple design.
Find out all about this tactile innovation in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine for iOS. We’ve got the lowdown on Ive’s exit — and the elusive “>Evans Hankey, the woman who will lead Apple’s famous Industrial Design studio going forward.
If you prefer to read in a browser, you can find links to the week’s best Apple news, reviews and how-tos below.
Apple CEO Tim Cook sent a memo to all Apple employees Thursday informing them that long-time Chief Design Officer Jony Ive is leaving the company.
Instead of talking about the giant hole Ive will leave behind, Cook spun the Apple design guru’s exit as an “important evolution” for the company. He also talked about how great it will be for everyone as Ive pursues his passions as head of his new design firm, LoveFrom.
Apple’s long-time design boss Jony Ive revealed today that he is leaving the company.
After helping create some of the most iconic consumer products of all time for Apple, Ive says he is going to strike out on his own to create a new creative business called LoveFrom.
Learn all about Apple's current CEO. Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
Tim Cook is seriously underrated. Seven years after taking over as CEO from Steve Jobs, the narrative that he’s riding his predecessor’s coattails needs to change. It’s just not true.
Cook is his own man, transforming Apple in his own way. See Monday’s Apple credit card and subscription News+ app as examples, which are centered on customer privacy, a big Tim Cook mandate.
The company today is a better corporate citizen than it was in the past. And as a business, it’s firing on all cylinders. Cook is doing almost everything right. Some pundits are beginning to argue he’s Apple’s best CEO yet.
Jony Ive has been at Apple since 1992. Screenshot: Vanity Fair/YouTube
Today marks the 52nd birthday of Jony Ive, Apple’s much-admired chief design officer. As the shaper of products including, well, virtually everything that Apple builds, Ive has been a central presence since Steve Jobs’ return to Cupertino in the late 1990s.
To celebrate his birthday, check out one of Ive’s most interesting interviews. Happy birthday, Jony!
February 19, 1981: Jef Raskin, creator of the Macintosh project, sends a memo to Apple CEO Mike Scott, listing his many complaints about working with Steve Jobs.
He claims that Jobs, who joined the Mac team the previous month, is tardy, shows bad judgment, interrupts people, doesn’t listen and is a bad manager.