Apple's App Store chief Phil Schiller steps down amid Cook-era exodus

Phil Schiller, long the head of Apple’s App Store, stepped down from that role in recent days, Bloomberg reported Monday. Schiller has been with Apple since 1987, with only a four-year break during that time, and took over the App Store in 2015.

Schiller won’t be leaving the company entirely: he will stay on as an Apple Fellow, a role reserved for people who have made outstanding technical or leadership contributions, working on unspecified projects. Bloomberg reported that company insiders see the Fellow role as a step toward Schiller’s eventual retirement.

During his time overseeing the App Store, Schiller shepherded Apple through a lawsuit brought by Epic Games over the App Store’s in-app fee system. Epic filed an antitrust lawsuit in 2020 claiming Apple had created an illegal monopoly; the monopoly claims were ultimately dismissed, and the judge largely ruled in Apple’s favor, though the company was still ordered to let app developers link to external payment options — a legal fight that is still ongoing. As Schiller steps down, Apple is delegating day-to-day App Store operations to Carson Oliver, who has been at Apple for more than 14 years, all of it within the App Store division. The App Store is also being moved from Apple’s marketing department to its services division, led by Eddy Cue, according to Bloomberg.

Schiller’s departure follows a series of other high-level exits at Apple. Chief operating officer Jeff Williams retired in December after 27 years with the company, as did Lisa Jackson, vice president for environment, policy, and social initiatives, whose retirement was also announced in December, alongside general counsel Kate Adams. Jennifer Bailey, longtime head of Apple Pay, is set to retire in October after more than 20 years at the company. In June, Paul Meade, the Apple vice president in charge of the Vision Pro headset, left to join OpenAI; in his absence, Apple has since downsized the Vision Pro team, which had lost around 100 employees as of two weeks ago.

As John Ternus takes over as CEO, he will be tasked with rebuilding Apple’s corporate leadership ranks alongside his other responsibilities.

Why it matters

A leadership transition of this scale — spanning the App Store, operations, legal, payments, and a flagship hardware line — tests how much institutional continuity Apple can preserve while installing a new generation of executives under a first-time CEO.