The Designer Who Introduced the iPhone Air to the World Has Left Apple, Report Says

You don’t all the time get to know the actual motive somebody leaves their job—not even the man within the video beneath, Abidur Chowdhury, an Apple industrial designer who performed a “key function” in creating the iPhone Air, and acted as its spokesman when it was launched, however who has, according to Bloomberg, left Apple for an AI startup.

With that in thoughts, the Data reported a bit over every week in the past that the iPhone Air is such a flop that Apple has delayed rolling out the subsequent mannequin. (Bloomberg’s story on Chowdhury notes {that a} second iPhone Air will nonetheless occur, however not till 2027) Gizmodo’s largely positive review of the machine discovered it too light-weight for its personal good, with less-than-ideal battery life, and famous that if it “finally ends up going the way in which of the dodo just like the iPhone Mini and Plus,” it would transform a “testbed for miniaturizing parts into a wise glasses type issue” and should embrace parts of a foldable iPhone nonetheless to return.

Bloomberg’s story on Chowdhury’s departure (attributed to nameless “folks aware of the transfer”) is from Bloomberg’s intrepid Apple scoop-getter, Mark Gurman, who has hastened to suggest that he doesn’t suppose the iPhone Air is a few form of company catastrophe that deserves Chowdhury being compelled out. “His exit is unrelated to the debut of the cellphone, which has seen its design praised regardless of underwhelming gross sales,” Gurman tweeted.

His exit is unrelated to the debut of the cellphone, which has seen its design praised regardless of underwhelming gross sales. https://t.co/sw2mtOGs58

— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) November 18, 2025

Chowdhury joined Apple in 2019, across the identical time movie star chief design officer Jony Ive departed the corporate. According to reports, that interval would have coincided with the corporate’s makes an attempt to get well from the slow-motion meltdown that ensued when Ive seemingly misplaced his religion in Apple as a consequence of disagreements over what the Apple Watch was purported to be, after which largely stopped coming to work, and let his division principally atrophy.

In keeping with Gurman, Chowdhury’s resignation “made waves internally, given his rising profile throughout the design crew.”