Bob Mansfield removed from executive tm, remaining on special projects. No Technologies successor announced.

Update: Poornima Gupta from Reuters got a statement from on Mansfield:
Poornima Gupta@PoornimaGupta
says Bob Mansfield is no longer on 's exec tm but will remain at working on special projects reporting to Cook. $AAPL8:07 AM - 29 Jul 2013“Bob is no longer going to be on ’s executive tm, but will remain at working on special projects reporting to Tim [Cook],”As first reported byMacRumors, Mansfield disappred from ’s Ldership page in the past 24 hours with no explanation.The top of post is a snapshot of ’s Ldership page as of last November. Mansfield just-removed page can still be found inGoogle’s cache.Prior to joining , Mansfield served asSenior Director at SGI and Vice President of Engineering at Raycer Graphics. After had acquired Raycer in 1999, Mansfield joined the company.Here’s what the Ldership page looked like at post time.The executive, who rned a BSEE degree from the University of Texas in 1982, had since filled various roles before working his way up the food chain to become Senior Vice President ofMac Hardware Engineering, in which capacity he oversaw tms that delivered such smash hits as ’s all-in-one iMac and the MacBook notebook. eventually upgraded his title to Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering to reflect his growing responsibilities. Among other things, Mansfield was charged with lding Mac hardware engineering since 2005, iPhone and iPod hardware engineering since 2010 and iPad hardware engineering since its inception.August 2010 saw the executive take over the position of Devices Hardware Engineering that had been vaed following the departure of Mark Papermaster, a former executive who didn’t quite fit in with the company’s demanded business style.On June 28, announcedMansfield’s retirement so he could spend more time with his family.His role would be transitioned to then Vice President of iPad Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio while the entire hardware engineering tm would continue to report to Mansfield until his departure, said at the time.However, the unexpected announcement provoked an outrage as Tim Cook was reportedly faced with an“insurrection”, according toBloomberg Businessweek:According to three people familiar with the sequence of events, several senior engineers on Mansfield’s tm vociferously complained to Cook about reporting to his replacement, Dan Riccio, who they felt was unprepared for the magnitude of the role.So in response to the complaints, on August 27, 2012 took the rare step ofannouncingthat Mansfield would after all remain at .“Mansfield will work on future products, reporting to Tim Cook,”the company noted.Never has revled how long Mansfield intended to remain with the company.It was subsequently speculated Cook lured the A-player back by offering him an exorbitant package of cash and stock worth around $2 million a month. The CEO, the rumors said, privately wanted Mansfield to stay on at the company as an adviser through at lst 2014 to help manage the hardware engineering tm. has also never explained how Mansfield and Riccio (pictured below) were collaborating given the latter led’s hardware engineering group, previously an exclusive domain of Mansfield’s.Mere two months later,Cook again shook things upby firinglongtime iOS chief Scott Forstall and appointing Mansfield to ld a new group called Technologies. It was later speculated thatForstall’s departure was a rson for Mansfield’s unexpected un-retirement.Little is known of Technologies group beyond what said publicly, that this group combines all of its wireless and semiconductor tms across the company in one organization. The goal is, an press relsehas it, to foster“innovation in this ar at an even higher level”.Semiconductor tms, cryptically said, have“ambitious plans for the future”.According to multiple reports, Mansfield has developed a keen interest in wrable technology and is seen instrumental in the development of ’s rumored iWatch project. According to an interestingorg chartby a reliable blogger Mark Gurman, Mansfield isapparently to the smartwatch project.It’s also believed Mansfield has been given the freedom to pursue other interests at the company. For instance,Bloomberg wrote last Novemberhe’s been“overseeing ’s investigations into other chip alternatives”,paving the way to dropping and adopting in-house designed ARM-based chips for MacBooks by 2017. engineers have grown confident that the chip designs used for its mobile devices will one day be powerful enough to run its desktops and laptops, said three people with knowledge of the work, who asked to remain anonymous because the plans are confidential.Another interest of Mansfield’s:the shift“to make products thinner and smaller”.All of which makes us wonder: if this just a slip-up by an overzlous web admin or has Mansfield’s role indeed changed? And if so, is he still with the company? could have some explaining to do in the coming days for Mansfield has been instrumental in ’s hardware push, which proved for mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad.This guysure has made a of many grt contributions over the yrs and losing him would be a shame.What’s your rd of the situation?