Apple PR:
Apple today announced that Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of Mac Software Engineering, and Dan Riccio, Apple’s vice president of Hardware Engineering, have been promoted to senior vice presidents. Federighi and Riccio will report to Apple CEO Tim Cook and serve on Apple’s executive management team.
Apple also announced that Bob Mansfield, who announced his retirement in June, will remain at Apple. Mansfield will work on future products, reporting to Tim Cook.
Federighi had a phenomenal year with the launch of Mountain Lion. I don’t think even Apple expected it’s launch to go as well as it did, so having him bumped up the chain and being in the “inner circle” is no surprise.
Now this means Riccio is taking over Mansfield’s job, but Mansfield isn’t leaving. This makes very little sense, and isn’t explained by Apple. It could simply be a case that the role is so important that it needs two people (one for iOS devices, another for Mac) or that Mansfield will be in a depreciated role, much akin to a consultant.
