David Bridges
Key Highlights
- Departure: Abidur Chowdhury, an industrial designer at Apple, has left for an AI startup.
- Product Issues: The iPhone Air is experiencing poor sales, leading to a delay in the next model’s rollout.
- Design Praise: Despite low sales, the design of the iPhone Air has received positive feedback.
- Company Changes: Chowdhury’s exit comes as Apple navigates internal design team dynamics following past leadership changes.
You don’t always get to know the real reason someone leaves their job—not even the guy in the video below, Abidur Chowdhury, an Apple industrial designer who played a “key role” in developing the iPhone Air, and acted as its spokesman when it was introduced, but who has, according to Bloomberg, left Apple for an AI startup.
With that in mind, The Information reported a little over a week ago that the iPhone Air is such a flop that Apple has delayed rolling out the next model. (Bloomberg’s story on Chowdhury notes that a second iPhone Air will still happen, but not until 2027) Gizmodo’s largely positive review of the device found it too lightweight for its own good, with less-than-ideal battery life, and noted that if it “ends up going the way of the dodo like the iPhone Mini and Plus, it might turn out to be a “testbed for miniaturizing components into a smart glasses form factor” and may include components of a foldable iPhone still to come.
Bloomberg’s story on Chowdhury’s departure (attributed to anonymous “people familiar with the move”) is from Bloomberg’s intrepid Apple scoop-getter, Mark Gurman, who has hastened to imply that he does not think the iPhone Air is some sort of corporate disaster that merits Chowdhury being forced out. “His exit is unrelated to the debut of the phone, which has seen its design praised despite underwhelming sales,” Gurman tweeted.
His exit is unrelated to the debut of the phone, which has seen its design praised despite underwhelming sales. https://t.co/sw2mtOGs58
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) November 18, 2025
Chowdhury joined Apple in 2019, around the same time celebrity chief design officer Jony Ive departed the company. According to reports, that period would have coincided with the company’s attempts to recover from the slow-motion meltdown that ensued when Ive seemingly lost his faith in Apple due to disagreements over what the Apple Watch was supposed to be, and then mostly stopped coming to work, and let his department basically atrophy.
According to Gurman, Chowdhury’s resignation “made waves internally, given his rising profile within the design team.”
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