Apple’s design division has been hit with another high-profile departure, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports. This time around is industrial designer Abidur Chowdhury, who helped create and introduced the new iPhone Air back in September.
According to people familiar with the matter, Chowdhury has quietly left the company for an artificial intelligence startup. Gurman adds that the designer’s departure allegedly caused a stir internally, given his rising profile within the team.
Chowdhury had spent more than six years at Apple, joining the very moment the company was still reeling from the exit of its iconic design chief Jony Ive back in 2019. As mentioned earlier, he had become one of the key minds behind the iPhone Air, a device lauded for its design but reportedly underperformed in sales. A follow-up model is still planned for 2027, Bloomberg reported separately.
The designer’s exit is arriving at a time when Apple’s design group is almost unrecognisable compared to its Ive-era lineup. Most of the old guard has retired or decamped to other firms, and what remains is a team largely rebuilt from industry hires and junior designers.
The shake-ups aren’t limited to hardware design, either. Jeff Williams, Apple’s longtime COO and executive who oversaw the design organisation for years, left the company just last week. On the software side, the company’s user interface group has been reportedly hit as well, with multiple departures this year. Apple signalled a shift in how design would operate going forward in July, where the team now reports directly to CEO Tim Cook.
And if these high profile departures aren’t enough already, Gurman recently reported separately that Cook himself is already preparing to step down as company CEO, but will remain as board chairman. Apple’s senior vice-president of engineering, John Ternus, is currently the leading candidate to replace him, though the decision has yet to be finalised.
(Source: Bloomberg)
