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August 8, 2010

Apple dumps iPhone exec after antenna fiasco

Shock departure for former IBM man

By Steve Evans

Mark Papermaster, Apple’s senior vice-president of devices hardware engineering, has left the company after the much-publicised iPhone 4 antenna debacle.

According to a report in the New York Times Apple would not confirm whether Papermaster jumped or was pushed, but, citing sources familiar with the situation, the paper claimed he was dumped because of a number of hardware issues.

John Gruber, writing on the Daring Fireball Apple blog said that Papermaster had been dismissed. "From what I’ve heard, it’s clear he was sacked. Papermaster was a conspicuous absence at the Antennagate press conference. Inside Apple, he’s "the guy responsible for the antenna" — that’s a quote from a source back on July 23," he wrote.

It is believed that Papermaster has paid the price for "Antennagate" – a problem with the antenna on Apple’s new iPhone 4 which results in a loss of signal when the device is gripped in a certain way. Experts say that this is a result of the antenna design – it is housed in a steel band that runs around the edge of the device.

After initially denying there was a problem and insisting that all smartphones are affected in the same way, Apple eventually decided to offer free bumper cases to all iPhone 4 owners. Apple has been widely criticised for the way it handled the incident.

Papermaster’s departure is surprising given what Apple went through to recruit him in November 2008 from IBM, where he worked on chip development. After his departure from IBM, where he had been for 26 years, Big Blue sued Papermaster over fears he would divulge trade secrets to Apple. The case was eventually settled when Papermaster agreed to wait six months before beginning work at Apple and not reveal any confidential information about IBM.

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Bob Mansfield, senior vice-president of Macintosh hardware engineering, will be assuming Papermaster’s responsibilities.

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