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.
Tuesday September 9, 2025 10:59 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today introduced the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
Both devices feature a new aluminum unibody design, with the Ceramic Shield now protecting both the front and back sides. Apple says the front side is now Ceramic Shield 2, which offers 3x better scratch resistance, while the rear Ceramic Shield is advertised as 4x more resistant to cracks compared to the back glass on previous...
Tuesday September 9, 2025 8:55 am PDT by Jordan Golson
Apple's "Awe Dropping" event kicks off today at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, where we're expecting to see the iPhone 17 lineup, several updated Apple Watch models, and the third-generation AirPods Pro unveiled, and perhaps some other announcements.
Apple is providing a live video stream on its website, on YouTube, and in the company's TV app across various platforms. We will also be updating...
Tuesday September 9, 2025 12:23 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple continues to phase out the physical SIM card tray on iPhones, with the latest models relying solely on eSIM technology in more countries.
The new iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max support eSIMs only in these countries and regions, according to Apple:
Bahrain
Canada
Guam
Japan
Kuwait
Mexico
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Un...
Apple today unveiled the iPhone Air, an all-new kind of iPhone featuring an ultra-thin design.
The iPhone Air is just 5.6mm thick, making it the thinnest iPhone ever. The frame is made of titanium with a polished mirror finish. The device features Ceramic Shield 2 with 3x better scratch resistance and 4x better crack resistance, on both sides of the device for the first time. Apple says that ...
Apple is preparing to launch two versions of the AirPods Pro 3 over 2025 and 2026, according to a Weibo leaker.
Yesterday, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple is planning to debut the AirPods Pro 3 this year. They could arrive as soon as this week at Apple's "Awe dropping" event.
Crucially, Kuo added that Apple is planning to introduce a successor to this year's AirPods ...
Tuesday September 9, 2025 1:25 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has confirmed the battery capacities for the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max models that were announced earlier today.
Apple is required to publish energy labels on its iPhone product pages in the EU, and they reveal the official mAh battery capacities for the devices.
Here are the battery capacities for each model, according to Apple:
iPhone 17:...
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.
Biggest design overhaul since iOS 7 with Liquid Glass, plus new Apple Intelligence features and improvements to Messages, Phone, Safari, Shortcuts, and more. Developer beta available now ahead of public beta in July.
