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Apple's former hardware chief and current Apple Vision Pro lead is retiring

Dan Riccio has been an important executive at Apple through the Steve Jobs and Tim Cook eras, and he's retiring after leading the Apple Vision Pro team.

John Ternus took over as the Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering after Dan Riccio left the position. Riccio continued to report to Tim Cook as a vice president leading the Apple Vision Pro team, but he's now set to retire.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Dan Riccio is retiring imminently. The day-to-day operations on the Apple Vision Pro team will be taken over by Mike Rockwell, and oversight will fall under John Ternus.

Dan Riccio has been an incredible influence on Apple since he joined the company in 1998. He became the SVP of Hardware Engineering in 2012 and helped herald products like AirPods and the iPad Pro, but was also the mind behind projects like the ill-fated Apple Car.

While some might call Riccio's departure a bad sign for Apple Vision Pro's performance or its future, that's a highly unlikely conclusion. The reality is Apple's shown a pattern of cushioning executive retirements with smaller positions before they ultimately depart — like with Jony Ive or Phil Schiller.

Dan Riccio has spent 26 years with Apple and had a very successful career. As always with these kinds of stories, retirement is inevitable for someone over 60, and it isn't usually related to some kind of failure but rather a history of success and wealth, especially at Apple.



9 Comments

StrangeDays 9 Years · 13000 comments

Yeah after 26 years I don’t think anybody can read into the tea leaves here. Miracle that anyone sticks around that long. 

3 Likes · 0 Dislikes
JinTech 10 Years · 1068 comments

Oh no, Apple is DOOMED! ™

1 Like · 0 Dislikes
iqatedo 22 Years · 1812 comments

For whatever comes next Dan, our very best wishes.

2 Likes · 0 Dislikes
omasou 8 Years · 646 comments

If I owned even half as much stock as he probably owns, I'd have retired LONG ago.

4 Likes · 0 Dislikes
JamesCude 4 Years · 80 comments

The positive spin at the end of this article is kind of embarrassing. AVP is obviously a huge flop to anyone not immersed in the Kool Aid. Though of course, Apple will be just fine with its many other successful products.

2 Likes · 0 Dislikes