Dan Riccio transitioned from being Apple’s SVP of hardware engineering in 2021 to take over a ‘new project’ that turned out to be the Vision Pro.
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Dan Riccio, a longtime Apple executive formerly in charge of hardware, is retiring from the company this month, Bloomberg reports.
Riccio has been with Apple for 26 years. Before becoming the SVP of hardware engineering in 2012, he led the company’s iPad division. As the company’s hardware head, he oversaw some of the company’s most successful products, including the AirPods and large iPhones, as Bloomberg notes. He also headed up projects such as the Apple Car, which never came to be, and the Vision Pro, which has struggled to gain much of a foothold.
He was replaced as SVP of hardware engineering by John Ternus in 2021. At the time, he was said to be taking over an unspecified “new project” that ultimately turned out to be the company’s VR headset. Now, the Vision Products Group will be under the purview of Ternus, who has been rumored as a candidate to replace CEO Tim Cook in the future.
Apple has seen other significant executives leave since Jony Ive’s 2019 departure, like Evans Hankey, who took over industrial design from Ive but left in 2023. Hankey was followed by others, including VP of iPhone and Apple Watch design Tang Tan and longtime industrial designer Bart Andre.
