Phil Schiller has spent decades standing near the center of Apple’s public story – introducing products, shaping the company’s message, and, in more recent years, overseeing two of its most consequential operations: the App Store and Apple’s tightly choreographed launch events. Now, he is stepping back from both roles, while remaining at Apple as an Apple Fellow.

The move is a meaningful changing-of-the-guard moment for Apple. Schiller is not simply another executive whose name appears in a corporate filing. For many longtime Apple watchers, he was one of the company’s most recognizable faces – a familiar presenter through the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Mac, and App Store eras, equally comfortable explaining a technical feature or delivering one of Apple’s polished onstage lines.

According to Bloomberg, Schiller, 66, has relinquished responsibility for the App Store and product events. He will continue at the company on unspecified initiatives, but the change removes him from the two major areas he retained after giving up day-to-day leadership of Apple’s global marketing organization in 2020.

That earlier transition already felt like the end of an era. Apple moved Schiller into the Apple Fellow role, a title reserved for high-profile contributors to the company, while Greg “Joz” Joswiak took over as senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. At the time, Apple said Schiller would continue leading the App Store and Apple Events, preserving a major role for one of its longest-serving leaders.

Six years later, those remaining responsibilities are moving on too.

The App Store is reportedly shifting under Eddy Cue’s services organization, while Carson Oliver will continue running the store’s day-to-day operations with support from Ann Thai, whose work includes app-distribution tools and third-party marketplaces. Apple’s events operation, meanwhile, is expected to move to Nola Weinstein, Schiller’s former deputy for launches, under communications chief Kristin Huguet Quayle.

For Apple, that structure makes practical sense. The App Store is no longer just a storefront where iPhone owners pick up apps for a few dollars. It is a huge part of Apple’s services strategy, interwoven with subscriptions, payments, gaming, developer relationships, advertising, privacy policy, and an increasingly complicated set of legal and regulatory obligations. Apple says the broader App Store ecosystem facilitated more than $1.4 trillion in developer billings and sales during 2025, although it notes that more than 90 percent of that activity generated no commission for Apple.

That enormous figure also helps explain why the App Store has become one of Apple’s most heavily scrutinized businesses. During Schiller’s time overseeing it, Apple faced pressure from developers, lawmakers, regulators, and rivals over how software can be distributed on the iPhone, what payment systems apps can use, and how much control Apple should retain over its mobile platform.

The job has changed dramatically since Schiller helped launch the App Store alongside Steve Jobs in 2008. Back then, the pitch was remarkably straightforward: developers could reach millions of iPhone users, and Apple could turn the iPhone into a more useful, more flexible device with an expanding catalog of third-party software. The App Store became one of the core reasons the iPhone evolved from a premium smartphone into a platform that could handle everything from banking and streaming to work, transportation, games, fitness, and social life.

But success brought conflict. The App Store became too economically important to remain an uncomplicated part of Apple’s hardware business. Its policies have been tested by court fights and regulations around the world, forcing Apple to make changes to payment rules and alternative app-distribution options in some markets. That makes its placement under Cue’s services organization feel less like an administrative reshuffle and more like recognition of what the business has become: a central, contested part of Apple’s commercial engine.

Schiller’s other departing responsibility – Apple events – carries a different kind of significance. Apple product launches have always been more than presentations. They are carefully managed cultural moments, designed to turn technical specifications into a story about what a product will mean in someone’s life. For years, Schiller was one of the company’s defining storytellers in that format.

He joined Apple in 1987, before the company’s most successful modern products existed, and rose to head marketing in 1997. That timeline matters because it put him alongside Apple through its return under Jobs, the revival of the Mac, the arrival of the iPod, and the launch of the iPhone and iPad.

There was a certain continuity to Schiller’s presence. Jobs may have been the showman most associated with Apple’s legendary keynotes, but Schiller became one of the executives who helped carry that presentation culture into the Tim Cook era. He had a knack for translating Apple’s product language into something easy to repeat: why a screen mattered, why a camera mattered, why a chip mattered, or why an upgrade was supposed to feel exciting rather than merely incremental.

That job looks different today. Apple’s launches are now mostly pre-recorded productions instead of live stage events, closer to short films than traditional keynotes. Yet they remain important because Apple still depends on its ability to make annual upgrades feel like events. Handing the responsibility to a successor signals confidence that the format has become institutionalized, even if Schiller was one of the people who helped define it.

The timing amplifies the significance of the news. Schiller’s change comes as Apple goes through a broader executive transition, with John Ternus set to take over as chief executive officer from Tim Cook on September 1. Apple has also seen several other prominent leaders depart or shift roles in recent years, including former CFO Luca Maestri, former COO Jeff Williams, former design chief Alan Dye, former AI chief John Giannandrea, policy leader Lisa Jackson, and general counsel Kate Adams.

Executive departures are normal at a company of Apple’s age and scale, particularly when a leadership generation has stayed in place for years. Still, Schiller’s situation feels distinct because his name is so closely tied to Apple’s identity. He was a bridge between the Jobs-era Apple of black mock turtlenecks and live keynotes, and the Cook-era Apple built around global scale, services, privacy, and operational precision.

His continued status as an Apple Fellow leaves room for him to remain involved behind the scenes. Apple has not publicly detailed the initiatives he will take on, so it would be premature to call this a retirement. But the operational handoff is clear: Schiller is no longer running the App Store or the events that help sell Apple’s next big products to the world.

For customers, little may change overnight. The App Store will still be there when iPhone owners open it, and Apple’s next product video will still arrive with cinematic lighting, polished transitions, and an exacting attention to language. But internally, Apple is losing another executive who helped turn those things into the familiar institutions they are today.

Phil Schiller’s departure from these roles is not the end of Apple’s story, or even necessarily the end of his own career at Apple. It is, however, another unmistakable sign that the company is moving further into its next chapter.