Apple's Longtime Mac Hardware Chief Retiring

Mansfield, who reports to CEO Tim Cook, joined Apple in 1999 through its acquisition of Raycer Graphics. He has been in charge of Mac engineering since 2005 and iPad engineering from the product's beginnings.

In 2010, Mansfield took over iPhone engineering after Mark Papermaster, former longtime IBM executive and current CTO at AMD, stepped down in the wake of the iPhone 4 "Antennagate" issue.

"Bob has been an instrumental part of our executive team, leading the hardware engineering organization and overseeing the team that has delivered dozens of breakthrough products over the years," Cook said in a statement.

Mansfield will be handing off his day-to-day duties to Dan Riccio, vice president of iPad hardware engineering, over the "next several months," Apple said in a press release. Until the transition is complete, the hardware engineering team will continue reporting to Mansfield.

Riccio joined Apple in 1998 as vice president of product design and in April 2010 was named vice president of Apple's iPad division. Before joining Apple, Riccio spent a year at Compaq as a mechanical engineering manager, according to his LinkedIn profile.

"Dan has been one of Bob's key lieutenants for a very long time and is very well respected within Apple and by the industry," Cook said in the statement. "Our hardware engineering team is the best engineering team on earth and will not miss a beat during the transition."

In Apple's fiscal second quarter, the company sold 35.1 million iPhones and 11.8 million iPads, representing year-over-year growth of 88 percent and 151 percent, respectively. Mac sales rose 7 percent during the quarter to 4 million units.

PUBLISHED ON JUNE 29, 2012