Apple today announced that Bertrand Serlet, senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, will be departing the company in order to "focus less on products and more on science", although his specific destination remains unknown. Serlet joined Steve Jobs at NeXT in 1989, and transitioned to Apple in 1997 when NeXT was acquired and Jobs brought back to lead Apple.
"I've worked with Steve for 22 years and have had an incredible time developing products at both NeXT and Apple, but at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering.
Craig Federighi demoing Mac OS X Snow Leopard (Reuters)
Serlet will be replaced by Craig Federighi, currently Apple's vice president of Mac Software Engineering and who has led Mac OS X engineering for the past two years. Federighi is another former NeXT and Apple employee who spent ten years at Ariba before returning to Apple in 2009. Serlet notes that the transition should be seamless given Federighi's role in leading the current Mac OS X team.
"Craig has done a great job managing the Mac OS team for the past two years, Lion is a great release and the transition should be seamless."
Serlet has occasionally appeared at Apple keynote and media events over the years to introduce Mac OS X-related features, and thus well known to longtime Apple followers. Federighi has made a couple of on-stage appearances since his return to Apple, demoing Mac OS X Snow Leopard at WWDC 2009 and showing off some of the features of Apple's forthcoming Mac OS X Lion at last October's "Back to the Mac" event.
Apple may have canceled the super scratch resistant anti-reflective display coating that it planned to use for the iPhone 17 Pro models, according to a source with reliable information that spoke to MacRumors.
Last spring, Weibo leaker Instant Digital suggested Apple was working on a new anti-reflective display layer that was more scratch resistant than the Ceramic Shield. We haven't heard...
Apple has completed Engineering Validation Testing (EVT) for at least one iPhone 17 model, according to a paywalled preview of an upcoming DigiTimes report.
iPhone 17 Air mockup based on rumored design
The EVT stage involves Apple testing iPhone 17 prototypes to ensure the hardware works as expected. There are still DVT (Design Validation Test) and PVT (Production Validation Test) stages to...
Apple will likely manufacture its 20th anniversary iPhone models in China, despite broader efforts to shift production to India, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
In 2027, Apple is planning a "major shake-up" for the iPhone lineup to mark two decades since the original model launched. Gurman's previous reporting indicates the company will introduce a foldable iPhone alongside a "bold"...
Wednesday April 30, 2025 3:59 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is preparing to launch a dramatically thinner iPhone this September, and if recent leaks are anything to go by, the so-called iPhone 17 Air could boast one of the most radical design shifts in recent years.
iPhone 17 Air dummy model alongside iPhone 16 Pro (credit: AppleTrack)
At just 5.5mm thick (excluding a slightly raised camera bump), the 6.6-inch iPhone 17 Air is expected to become ...
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch, which launched on April 24, 2015. Yesterday, we recapped features rumored for the Apple Watch Series 11, but since 2015, the Apple Watch has also branched out into the Apple Watch Ultra and the Apple Watch SE, so we thought we'd take a look at what's next for those product lines, too.
2025 Apple Watch Ultra 3
Apple didn't update the...
Wednesday April 23, 2025 8:31 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Tuesday April 29, 2025 3:36 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
All upcoming iPhone 17 models will come equipped with 12GB of RAM to support Apple Intelligence, according to the Weibo-based leaker Digital Chat Station.
The claim from the Chinese leaker, who has sources within Apple's supply chain, comes a few days after industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that the iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max will all be equipped with 12GB of RAM.
...
Tuesday April 29, 2025 1:30 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
To me Serlet has more knowledge than Craig. He actually includes information about under the hood stuff and the nice new UI features. Craig just says "beautiful" "very natural". I will remember Serlet as the father of Leopard -- Apple's best release IMO and Craig with Lion, a release that really has nothing that exiting.
Again just my opinion.
I KNEW something was going on with Apple with regards to Bertrand.
All the amazing benefits both with speed, less HDD space usage on a clean install, OSX in general (Darwin) and even server or core shells we owe to Bertrand Serlet; not this dingle berry kiss-arse.
I worry that OSX will go complete IOS with a larger screen & storage.
Bertrand Serlet ... you will be solely missed and I HOPE you still get to fiddle with Darwin in each open source iteration.
Now if this guy is not leaving to retire. Then RIP Apple. Seriously, if Apple thinks I want my computer to resemble an overgrown iPad then they can loose my money and I'll be buying an Alienware. Microsoft seem to be the only ones that still get computers? Apple has done brilliantly as well but I really do worry that they have an itch to dumb them down to ridiculous levels!!
Then again...... perhaps the man is leaving because he just is not comfortable with the talk from other employee's about where they want to take Apple after Mr Jobs leaves which is no doubt going to be very soon. I have a feeling they want to go in an entirely new direction..
IMO you don't leave a massively successful company after 22 years without a reason unless your retiring.
Dang, Federighi has large shoes to fill. His Lion demo was so-so. Serlet has been on the Mac OS X team since day one if I remember right, and has always seemed to understand where it needed to go next.
I wonder if the departure has anything to do with Mac OS X transitioning away from a traditional desktop OS towards a more touch-centric, "no-fuss" one. Would be interested in Serlet's opinion on this.
