Today Apple has announced that there are going to be some major changes coming forth within their Executive Team. Some of the major changes include a re-organization of many of the responsibilities held by Apple’s executive team. Along with the reworking of responsibilities, there are two executives who are out of the company. There are four executives who are having responsibilities added, Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue, and Craig Federighi are taking on more responsibility. The two executives who are leaving are Scott Forstall, head of iOS, and John Browett, Head of Apple’s Retail Stores.

Jony Ive will now be in charge of Human Interface (HI). In addition to his current role as head of Industrial Design, Ive will oversee all visual aspects of Apple’s products. This means anything from the visual look of MacBook Pro, to the iPhone, to now the visual look of OS X as well as iOS. Heading up the software aspects of the Human Interface portion of Apple’s products is not far from the responsibility of the physical design of the products. While Ive may not do the heavy lifting of actually programming the interface, he will have significant input.

The person in charge of the actual implementation of the interface for OS X and iOS will be Craig Federighi. Federighi has already been managing the OS X portion of Apple’s software. The inclusion of iOS signifies a couple of items. The first is that Apple’s ultimate vision is to combine the two Operating systems as much as possible. This began with the release of iOS 5 and OS X 10.7 Lion in July of 2011. This direction was made even more apparent with the release of iOS 6 and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion in July 2012. The second item is that should the two operating systems remain separate, having one person manage the two major operating systems can, and hopefully will, allow for even more cross-platform cohesiveness. This could be anything from better iCloud integration to more parity of features released with the two operating systems.

Eddy Cue, who currently heads Internet software, most notably iTunes, will now be in charge of Siri as well as Maps. Along with iTunes, the inclusion of Siri and Maps does mean that Cue is now in charge of the biggest Internet products that Apple operates. It will be interesting to see how, if in any way, Cue steers the Internet Software and Services division towards more integration. Siri is already integrated into Maps, with turn-by-turn directions, but there are still some remaining ways that Siri could be integrated into iTunes, or Maps into iTunes.

The last executive to receive additional responsibilities is Bob Mansfield. Mansfield was set to retire this year, but CEO Tim Cook has convinced him to stay on for another couple of years. Mansfield had run the Mac Hardware Engineering team. However, Mansfield will now be heading a new division, simply called Technologies. This group will include Wireless, as well as Apple’s semiconductor unit; the group responsible for Apple’s Custom chips, the A4, A5, A5x, A6, and A6x. Since Mansfield had been in charge of Apple’s Mac Hardware engineering, this transition should be a smooth one.

John Bowett, Apple’s head of Retail stores, is out as Retail chief. Bowett replaced Ron Johnson as head of Retail. In less than a year, he is out. Apple is currently looking for a new head of retail operations.

The changes made by Tim Cook are designed to foster new innovations and collaboration between Apple’s teams. This collaboration may produce even better products given the new roles that the Senior Vice Presidents now hold. With Ive in charge of all design, we will see an even better User Interface across both hardware and software. Eddy Cue has built iTunes and the App stores and will continue to do so with the inclusion of Siri and Maps. Craig Federighi will be the one to make the possible merging of iOS and OS X, under the watchful eye of Ive and his design skills. This change is one of the biggest that Tim Cook has made since taking over as CEO just over 14 months ago. We will see how it pans out for the future of Apple’s products.

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Wayne Dixon

I'm into anything technology related. I do some HTML/CSS/PHP development. I like to follow things that most people would find annoying or not worthwhile. I follow Apple, Microsoft, Google, The Cloud, cell phones and even programming. By Day I'm a Systems Administrator for a Library, which has it's own set of issues. Follow me on Twitter.

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