Apple announced today a major shuffle in its hardware and engineering team. Dan Riccio has been named the company"s vice president of engineering while John Ternus will succeed him as the senior vice president of its hardware engineering team.
Ternus oversaw Apple"s hardware team that designed the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro. He is also credited for his leadership in Mac"s switch to Apple Silicon. Ternus has served as VP of Apple"s hardware engineering since 2013. He was responsible for the tech giant"s hardware engineering work on key products such as the first-generation AirPods and every iPad model released by Apple.
Meanwhile, Riccio will shift his focus to a new project that Apple didn"t specify. He led the design and development efforts for Apple"s first-generation iMac, 5G iPhone lineup, M1-based Macs, and AirPods Max. He joined Apple in 1998 as a product design lead before his appointment as VP of iPad hardware engineering in 2010. In 2012, Riccio was promoted to the executive team as hardware engineering lead.
Regarding the executive revamp, Apple CEO Tim Cook said:
“Every innovation Dan has helped Apple bring to life has made us a better and more innovative company, and we’re thrilled that he’ll continue to be part of the team. John’s deep expertise and wide breadth of experience make him a bold and visionary leader of our Hardware Engineering teams. I want to congratulate them both on these exciting new steps, and I’m looking forward to many more innovations they’ll help bring to the world.”
Both Riccio and Ternus will report to Cook. In his new role, Ternus will also become a part of the executive team.