Just a few months after Apple spotlighted the strikingly slim iPhone Air — and the designer who helped bring it to life — that designer has quietly left the company. Abidur Chowdhury, the industrial designer featured prominently in Apple’s launch video, has moved on from Apple entirely, sparking a wave of speculation about what happened behind the scenes. The reality is far less dramatic, but it says a lot about where top tech talent is heading these days.
Chowdhury spent six years on Apple’s industrial design team and became one of the more public faces of the iPhone Air’s debut earlier this year. But shortly after the phone actually shipped to customers, he left Apple to join an AI startup. For Apple, the alleged “iPhone Air 2” is already under development and is reportedly set for a 2027 debut.
On the surface, the timing looks odd. There have been reports that the iPhone Air, while not a flop, hasn’t hit the kind of numbers Apple usually expects from a new form-factor iPhone. So did the lead designer bail because the phone underperformed? According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, definitely not. He reports that Chowdhury’s departure wasn’t tied to sales at all, and that the designer’s work on the Air is well regarded internally — enough that Apple is already pushing ahead with a second-generation version.
Instead, his exit fits into a broader pattern: top designers and engineers are increasingly being pulled toward artificial intelligence. Chowdhury’s departure adds to a steady stream of exits that began after Jony Ive left in 2019, a shift that effectively reset Apple’s once-stable industrial design group. Many veterans have retired or followed Ive, leaving Apple with a team that looks very different from the one that shaped the iPhone, iPad, and Watch over the last decade.
For Chowdhury, the move seems less like a reaction to the iPhone Air and more like a reflection of the moment: AI startups are pulling in experienced hardware designers who want a fresh challenge. And for Apple, it’s another reminder that the next generation of its product designs will largely come from a new set of faces.
Don’t miss a thing! Join our Telegram community for instant updates and grab our free daily newsletter for the best tech stories!
For more daily updates, please visit our News Section.
Comments