Tim Cook is departing from his long-held role as Apple’s CEO — and a wave of top executives are heading for the exits as he does.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Phil Schiller, long the head of Apple’s App Store, stepped down from his position in recent days. Schiller has been with the company since 1987, with only a four-year break during that time. He took over the App Store in 2015.
However, Schiller won’t be leaving the company entirely. He will be staying on as an Apple Fellow, a role reserved for people who have made outstanding technical or leadership contributions to the company. In that role, he will be working on unspecified projects, although Bloomberg notes that insiders at the company believe that Schiller’s Fellow role is “a big step toward the executive ultimately retiring.”
Schiller shepherded the company through a lawsuit involving Epic Games over the App Store’s in-app fee system. Epic filed an antitrust lawsuit in 2020, claiming that Apple had created an illegal monopoly. The monopoly claims were ultimately dismissed, and the judge in the case largely ruled in Apple’s favor. However, the company was still ordered to ensure that app developers could link to external payment options. The legal fight is still ongoing.
