Apple Teases New and Wonderful Product in Top Team Shake-up

Changes are afoot at Apple as several of its engineering executives receive new posts ahead of work on a “new and wonderful� project.

Dan Riccio, who has spent almost two dozen years at the company — nine of them as Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering — will move to a role focusing on a new project and report to CEO Tim Cook, the tech giant announced on Monday, January 25.

“Working at Apple has been the opportunity of a lifetime,� Riccio said in a release, adding that “after 23 years of leading our product and design or hardware engineering teams … it’s the right time for a change. Next up, I’m looking forward to doing what I love most — focusing all my time and energy at Apple on creating something new and wonderful that I couldn’t be more excited about.�

Of course, Apple’s release offers no details about the “new and wonderful� product, though customers will of course ultimately decide if it ends up being as described. Recent speculation suggests Apple may be kicking things up a gear on its plans for an electric car featuring autonomous capabilities, with Hyundai recently letting slip that the two companies have been in talks about such a project. Apple is also thought to be working on a virtual reality headset and augmented reality glasses that could launch next year. Beyond those two products, who knows what Riccio could be talking about. An electric back scratcher? Metal-detecting shoes? Umbrella hat? Only time will tell, so sit tight.

Cook, for one, certainly has confidence in his latest appointee, describing Riccio as a man of “deep expertise and wide breadth of experience [that] make him a bold and visionary leader of our hardware engineering teams.�

Riccio’s vacated post will be filled by John Ternus, who joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 and has been a vice president of the company’s hardware engineering unit since 2013.

During his time at Apple, Ternus has overseen hardware engineering work on a range of products, including the iPhone 12, every iPad, and the first-generation AirPods. He’s also played a key role in the rollout of Apple’s new M1-powered Macs.

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