Is the exit of Tony Fadell, labeled the “Father of the iPod,” a signal Apple has larger plans for the device now partially eclipsed by the iPhone? Yes, say Apple experts.
“We believe this is the second major indication of the future of the iPod as a mobile computing platform,” Andrew Murphy, analyst at Piper Jaffray, told Cult of Mac Tuesday.
The introduction of the iPod Touch was the first tip Apple was moving toward greater mobile computing, Murphy added.
Fadell, who joined Cupertino in 2001, was a senior vice president in the iPod division. He’ll become an advisor to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The decision, made with his Apple Human Resources executive wife Danielle Lambert, was to “devote more time to their young family,” Apple announced.
Former IBM vice president Mark Papermaster will take Fadell’s position, a move Murphy believes means more emphasis on hardware.
“Papermaster’s experience in chip design and his replacement of Tony Fadell shows Apple focusing on mobile devices and possibly doing their own chips for the devices (iPods and iPhones),” the Piper Jaffray analyst wrote in an e-mail to Cult of Mac.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
