Was involved in the iPhone Air: Apple loses key designer
At the Apple keynote in September, he still presented the iPhone Air with a sonorous voice, but now Abidur Chowdhury is leaving. It is, of course, an AI startup.
Screenshot from the iPhone Air introduction video showing the name of the Apple designer who has now left the company.
(Image: Apple)
For months, Apple has been struggling with the departure of important researchers, developers, and managers – the AI department, which is actually supposed to drive Apple Intelligence and the company's core models, is particularly affected. But there's also unrest in the design team. Now Abidur Chowdhury, an industrial designer who was considered one of the young stars in the iPhone manufacturer's design team, has left. The departure is particularly significant because Chowdhury was recently personally selected by Apple to in a video present the iPhone Air. He is also said to have been part of the team behind the thinnest smartphone ever at Apple.
An AI Company of All Places
According to a US media report on Monday evening, Chowdhury will join an AI startup. Which one it is was not initially known. The departure caused a stir internally at Apple, as Chowdhury had recently risen rapidly in the design team. It is also considered an honor within the company to be able to introduce a product in an Apple keynote video with one's own voice.
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This was once reserved only for senior managers and former Apple design chief Jony Ive, who left the company in 2019 and is now working on AI hardware for OpenAI, for which billions have already been invested without a product existing. At Apple's keynote in September, where the iPhone 17 devices were introduced alongside the iPhone Air, another important member of the design team also spoke: Molly Anderson introduced the iPhone 17 Pro and heads up industrial design, thus being significantly above Chowdhury.
Apple's Design Team is Crucial
The designer is said to have worked at Apple for six years, so he was not part of the Jony Ive era. In software design, which is under Alan Dye, there have also reportedly been personnel departures recently. The team also recently lost its direct superior in Jeff Williams, a role now taken over personally by CEO Tim Cook.
Under Jony Ive, Apple's design team built up enormous power within the company. Many products emerged directly from the group, with hardware engineers and operations staff faithfully implementing the often very ambitious ideas. This led to iconic products such as the iPod, the iPhone, or the iMac, which is considered the product that led Apple out of crisis in the late nineties. The designs often require entirely new production processes; for example, Apple acquired countless CNC machines worldwide to manufacture its Unibody MacBooks, enabling them to mill the aluminum casings.
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