After Ford's announcement of the hiring of Doug Field who was the VP responsible for the day to day running of the Apple Car project dubbed project titan internally, it seems that Apple has moved quickly and elevated Kevin Lynch to the role. Lynch, who had joined Apple in 2013 from Adobe, had been the brains behind the watchOS platform which is the software layer behind the Apple Watch. He has been the executive whom Tim Cook and Jeff Williams turn to unveil new software features of an Apple Watch whenever there is a new one.
Earlier this year, Lynch was roped in by Apple's AI czar John Giannandrea to oversee the software of the project. Now, he has been elevated to running both the software and hardware teams and is the day-to-day boss of the Apple Car project. He takes over from Field who returned to Apple after a stint at Tesla where he was the chief engineer for the Model 3. Field had worked in the Mac hardware division before that he worked in Segway.
Also Read: Apple taps the services of Apple Watch product boss for project titan
Lynch was the chief technology officer at Adobe before he became VP of technology at Apple
Lynch unlike Field has no experience in the automotive space, as before Apple he was the CTO of Adobe, the software giant behind creative tools like Photoshop and Premiere Pro. He famously even tussled with Steve Jobs when Apple refused to support Adobe's Flash software on its Safari browser on iOS.
Lynch will have the support of some executives who have deep experience with cars. Ulrich Kranz is a former BMW executive and was also the co-founder of Canoo. Apple has also hired Manfred Harrer who was the boss of the Porsche Cayenne and Anton Uselmann also from Porsche developing a unique steering system.
Also Read: Ford poaches Apple Car boss Doug Field
Many believe that Apple has plans to launch the Apple Car in 2024 and could be the last major product that is launched under the stewardship of Tim Cook who recently completed 10 years at the job. Cook had recently hinted that he may not be at Apple in 10 years.
Interestingly, while Field reported to John Giannandrea, the SVP for AI and machine learning strategy at Apple, Lynch reports to Jeff Williams, Apple's COO and the boss of the Apple Watch. Lynch is still involved in the development of the Apple Watch but operationally in recent months, his role has been greatly reduced. Next week, Apple is expected to unveil a new iteration of the Apple Watch dubbed series 7 and Lynch could appear at the keynote as it has been the case for the past 7 years. But if he does, it may be his last one as the Apple Watch software chief.
