Apple says farewell to its App Store chief as it splits his team in two

Apple is comprehensively restructuring its long-standing App Store team, splitting the team into two separate divisions as the executive who has run it for more than a decade says goodbye to the company.

There will now be one team for the familiar, Apple-run App Store, and another one to handle alternative app stores in the European Union. Apple recently partially opened the platform to third-party app stores in response to the Digital Markets Act, a set of European regulations meant to break up what legislators and regulators deemed to be app store monopolies.

As noted, the restructuring comes with some notable personnel changes, too. App Store Vice President Matt Fischer, who has been at the helm of the platform since 2010, will leave the company.

In a social media post and email to employees, Fischer wrote the following:

After 21 years at Apple, I’ve made the decision to step away from our incredible company. This has been on my mind for some time, and as we are also reorganizing the team to better manage new challenges and opportunities, now is the right moment to pass the baton to two outstanding leaders on my team—Carson Oliver and Ann Thai—both of whom are more than ready for this next chapter.

You can visit his LinkedIn post to see the full statement. According to Bloomberg, Carson Oliver will lead the Apple App Store division, while Ann Thai will head up the alternative app store team. Up to this point, Oliver has been a senior director of business management at Apple, while Thai has had the title of worldwide product director for the App Store and Apple Arcade.

It’s worth noting that Fischer was the overall lead for Apple Arcade, so that service will now be under new leadership.

Apple Fellow and former marketing SVP Phil Schiller will continue to oversee both of the new divisions.

It’s unclear what further changes, if any, will result from this shakeup. Apple has already made significant changes in response to EU regulations, but some developers and competitors are still critical, saying it hasn’t gone far enough.