Veteran Apple Designer Leaving
Apple's campus. Photo by Flickr/Bruno Sanchez-Andrade NuñoLong time Apple industrial designer Christopher Stringer is leaving the company in another shakeup to Apple’s vaunted design team.
Mr. Stringer, who was at Apple for 21 years, was involved in the first iPhones and iPads and has a rare semi-public profile. He was a key witness in Apple’s years-long legal case against Samsung, testifying about Apple’s painstaking industrial design process. That case, in which Apple alleges Samsung stole the iPhone design, was reopened in January after the Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s decision in favor of Apple.
Apple declined to comment.
Apple’s design team has gone through multiple changes in the last two years as Jonathan Ive has stepped back from running the team. Richard Howarth now leads the team on a day-to-day basis.
The shifting leadership precipitated some defections—rare for the group, which inside Apple is known for its loyalty. Apple designer Danny Coster left to join the design team at GoPro last year.