Apple has announced executive management changes that the company is pitching as an effort to "encourage even more collaboration between the company’s world-class hardware, software and services teams."

As part of these changes, Jony Ive (Apple's vice president of design), Bob Mansfield (Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Engineering), Eddy Cue (senior vice president of Internet software) and Craig Federighi (senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering) will add more responsibilities to their roles. Apple also announced that Scott Forstall, Apple's senior vice president of iPhone software, will be leaving Apple next year and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.

"We are in one of the most prolific periods of innovation and new products in Apple’s history," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a press release. "The amazing products that we’ve introduced in September and October, iPhone 5, iOS 6, iPad mini, iPad, iMac, MacBook Pro, iPod touch, iPod nano and many of our applications, could only have been created at Apple and are the direct result of our relentless focus on tightly integrating world-class hardware, software and services."


Fairly or not, Forstall has been blamed by many media pundits for the ill-received Maps app in iOS 6. Browett came to Apple in April from European technology retailer, Dixons Retail, where he had been CEO since 2007.

In August it was reported that Browett had spearheaded a new staffing formula for its retail stores, leading some employees to see their hourly shifts cut and retail locations to be understaffed. Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told "Dow Jones" (http://macte.ch/2JPpz) that: "Making these changes was a mistake and the changes are being reversed ... Our employees are our most important asset and the ones who provide the world-class service our customers deserve."

Ive will provide leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) across the company in addition to his role as the leader of Industrial Design. Cue will take on the additional responsibility of Siri and Maps, placing all of our online services in one group.

Federighi will lead both iOS and OS X. Mansfield will lead a new group, Technologies, which combines all of Apple’s wireless teams across the company in one organization. A search for a new head of Retail is underway and in the interim, the Retail team will report directly to Cook.