Apple has reportedly recruited Michael Abbott, who has a long history in the tech industry -- most notably serving as Twitter's VP of engineering, and heading up Palm's webOS team.
An announcement was made internally, but the hire hasn't been made public, according to MacGeneration. It's not clear what Abbott's new role might entail.
Last summer however he wrote a blog post admitting that he'd like to return to engineering, despite his work with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.
"I have come to understand that my real passion lies in the grappling to understand, develop and build new technologies," he wrote. "Like you, perhaps, I am captivated by what AR could enable, and fascinated by 'real' applications of AI/ML, or how security techniques from the world of geopolitics are influencing enterprise technologies."
All of those are fields Apple is trying to address. The company is rumored to be working on an augmented reality headset for instance, and is likely racing to upgrade Siri to better compete against voice assistants from Amazon and Google. In fact Siri and machine learning improvements would be integral to any AR plans.
Some of Abbott's other credits include working as a general manager at Microsoft, and serving a peripheral advisor, board, or investment role at organizations like Plex, Snap, and Healthcare.gov.