Apple just tapped its senior VP of engineering to head up a mysterious new secret project

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Apple’s senior VP of engineering, Dan Riccio, is shuffling around at Apple, to an unnamed new project. He’ll still be reporting directly to CEO Tim Cook, continuing to make Apple a “more innovative company.”

Riccio was the leader of the company’s Hardware Engineering teams in recent years, although he’s worked on almost every Apple product since his joining in 1998, from the first-gen iMac to the recent M1-based Macs. We can only speculate on what the new project is, but it must be big if the company is pulling him away from the rest of the engineering team.

Maybe it’s to head the augmented/virtual reality headset development, or the Apple Car, or it could be something that even the analysts haven’t figured out. Whatever the secretive project turns out to be, it’s almost guaranteed to be cool. In Riccio’s own words, “Next up, I’m looking forward to doing what I love most — focusing all my time and energy at Apple on creating something new and wonderful that I couldn’t be more excited about.”

His replacement on Apple’s executive team will be John Ternus, who’s leadership has steered every generation of iPad, and the first-generation AirPods. He’s also been a key figure in the transition to Apple’s own CPUs in the M1 Macs.

What do you think? What project could Riccio be working on now? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.