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Apple says goodbye to its App Store boss and splits his team in two


Apple says goodbye to its App Store boss and splits his team in two

The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.
Enlarge / The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.

Apple is undertaking a major restructuring of its long-standing App Store team, splitting it into two separate departments as the executive who led it for more than a decade leaves the company.

There will now be one team for the well-known Apple-operated App Store and another for alternative app stores in the European Union. Apple recently partially opened the platform to third-party app stores. This was in response to the Digital Markets Act, a set of European regulations designed to break up what lawmakers and regulators see as app store monopolies.

As mentioned, the restructuring also brings with it some notable personnel changes. App Store Vice President Matt Fischer, who has been at the helm of the platform since 2010, will be leaving the company.

In a social media post and an email to employees, Fischer wrote:

After 21 years at Apple, I have made the decision to leave our incredible company. This has been on my mind for some time, and as we also reorganize the team to better meet new challenges and opportunities, now is the right time to pass the baton to two outstanding leaders on my team – Carson Oliver and Ann Thai – who are both more than ready for this next chapter.

You can visit his LinkedIn post to see the full statement. According to Bloomberg, Carson Oliver will lead the Apple App Store division, while Ann Thai will lead the alternative app stores team. Until now, Oliver was Apple’s senior director of business management, while Thai held the title of worldwide product director for the App Store and Apple Arcade.

It’s worth noting that Fischer was the overall head of Apple Arcade, so that service is now under new management.

Apple Fellow and former SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller will continue to lead both new departments.

It’s unclear what other changes, if any, will result from this restructuring. Apple has already made significant changes in response to EU regulations, but some developers and competitors are still critical, saying it doesn’t go far enough.

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