Although the iPhone is Apple’s flagship product, accessories such as AirPods have become extremely important to the company in recent years. And as Apple works on new products in this segment, it has now changed the leadership of its team responsible for audio products, which includes not only the company’s headphones, but also the HomePod.
Apple’s audio team has new leadership
According to a Bloomberg report citing sources familiar with the matter, Gary Geaves, the current vice president in charge of audio products at Apple, is stepping down. Ruchir Davé, who has worked at Apple since 2009, will take over leadership of the audio team – which has around 300 employees.
Of course, the work of Apple’s audio team goes far beyond AirPods and HomePod. The team was responsible for developing spatial audio technology, which is now present in many of the company’s devices. It’s also behind the speakers built into the Apple Vision Pro. Bloomberg says the group operates “audio testing labs at Apple’s Silicon Valley offices.”
Geaves was shifted from his role in December to report directly to Matt Costello, the executive responsible for Beats and HomePod products. He will continue at Apple as a consultant for the audio team, while Costello will be in charge of the product design group for accessories.
For those unfamiliar, Gary Geaves joined Apple in 2011 and played a key role in the development of the HomePod. He has also spent the last two years working on revamping the AirPods lineup, as rumors suggest that Apple has major updates to its wireless earbuds coming soon.
Although Apple is yet to comment on the move, sources say that Geaves has been planning to retire for some time.
What’s next for AirPods and the HomePod
Apple’s revenue from accessories has grown a lot since the introduction of the Apple Watch in 2015 and AirPods in 2016. AirPods alone bring in more than $15 billion a year for Apple, according to estimates, leading the market for personal audio products. HomePod, on the other hand, isn’t exactly a hit.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has extensively reported on Apple’s plans to release new AirPods in 2024. The company is expected to replace both AirPods 2 and AirPods 3 with two new variants of AirPods 4. The new earbuds will look more like the current AirPods Pro in terms of design, and one of the new versions will have noise cancellation, just like the Pro models.
As for the HomePod, 9to5Mac recently revealed Apple’s plans to introduce a new smart speaker with a built-in screen that runs tvOS.
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