Apple's head of iPhone engineering out after 'Antennagate'

08.08.2010
Mark Papermaster, Apple's senior vice president of engineering for the and iPod, is leaving the firm, according to reports by The New York Times.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling confirmed to the that Papermaster is leaving the company. His responsibilities will be assumed by Bob Mansfield, vice president of Macintosh engineering.

Papermaster's biography and photograph have already been yanked from Apple's Web site. Google's cache indicated that it had been pulled sometime after last Tuesday.

Dowling did not respond to e-mail from Computerworld seeking confirmation and asking whether Papermaster's departure was connected to the complaints earlier this summer about the iPhone 4's reception.

Papermaster, a 26-year-veteran of , joined Apple in October 2008, but was barred from working at the Cupertino, Calif. company five days later when IBM filed a federal lawsuit that claimed he had signed a non-competition agreement. IBM also argued that working for Apple would his former employer.

The bulk of Papermaster's time at IBM was in processor design, and he eventually became IBM's vice president of microprocessor technology development.