Apple announced Tuesday that Dan Riccio, Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, will be relinquishing his current position and taking a new position focused entirely on a „new project.“ Riccio has led hardware engineering since 2012. Prior to this position, he led iPad hardware engineering. He will report directly to CEO Tim Cook in his new position.

John Ternos, who has held the position of vice president of instrumentation engineering since 2001, will take on Riccio’s former position leading the instrumentation engineering team. Ternus has appeared in recent Apple product announcements, and has been a pioneer of the iPhone 12, as well as a major team leader on AirPods, every iPad, and M1.

As is common with ads like this, there are statements from key Apple figures on the subject. Start cooking:

Every innovation Dan helped achieve for Apple has made us a better and more creative company, and we are delighted that he will continue to be a part of the team … John’s deep experience and breadth of experience make him a bold and dreamy leader in our hardware engineering teams. I want to congratulate them for these exciting new steps, and I look forward to more innovations that they will help introduce to the world.

Here is Ricchio’s own statement:

Working at Apple was the chance of a lifetime, as we spent making the best products in the world with the most talented people you can imagine. After 23 years leading product design or hardware engineering teams – which culminated in the largest and most ambitious product year ever – it’s time for a change. Then, I look forward to doing what I love most – focusing all of my time and energy at Apple on creating something new and amazing that I couldn’t get excited about.

It is not clear exactly what „new thing“ Riccio will be working on, nor has the ad mentioned. The most popular and well-supported rumors about completely new future Apple products are an augmented reality headset and various versions of Apple’s car idea.

Riccio’s new Focus could be one of those, or it could be an entirely new product that we didn’t realize yet.

Image list by an Apple