Bertrand Serlet, chief of Mac software engineering at Apple, will leave the company to focus less on products and more on science, the company announced Wednesday.
Craig Federighi, currently serving as vice president of Mac Software Engineering, will assume Serlet's role as senior vice president.
"I've worked with Steve for 22 years and have had an incredible time developing products at both NeXT and Apple, but at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science," Serlet said in a statement. "Craig has done a great job managing the Mac OS team for the past two years, Lion is a great release and the transition should be seamless."
Apple did not mention if the departure was effective immediately. Federighi is responsible for the development of Mac OS X and has been managing the Mac OS software engineering group for the past two years. He will reports to Apple chief Steve Jobs.
Serlet started working with Jobs in 1989 at NeXT, the software company Jobs founded after being ousted from Apple in 1984. When Apple purchased NeXT in late 1996, Serlet also joined the company, but later left to work at Ariba as vice president of Internet Services and chief technology, among other roles. Serlet returned to Apple in 2009 to lead Mac OS X engineering.
Apple announced the latest version of Mac OS X, known as Lion, at an October press event. It is scheduled for release in summer 2011, but Apple has provided a few sneak peeks along the way.