Gurman: Apple is moving App Store to services unit run by Eddy Cue, who previously oversaw it until 2015; Cue is taking on a more influential role under Ternus
Phil Schiller is stepping down from his role leading the App Store and Apple events, according to a new Bloomberg report.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple put Phil Schiller in charge of the App Store in 2015, while Eddy Cue’s services remit dates to his 2011 promotion to lead Internet Software and Services. The reported handoff returns the storefront to an executive who previously oversaw it, alongside Schiller’s reported step back from App Store and events leadership.
The move also follows reported plans to place Apple’s health and fitness teams under Cue’s organization, a broader expansion of Services’ internal remit. Taken together, the assignments make organizational ownership of Apple’s consumer software businesses more consequential under John Ternus.
First-order effects
- Cue’s Services organization would take responsibility for the App Store, while Schiller steps away from its leadership role and remains at Apple on unspecified initiatives.
- The App Store’s operating decisions would move from the executive assigned the role in Apple’s 2015 leadership reshuffle to Cue’s services chain of command.
Second-order effects
- Developers and App Store partners would face a single services-led owner for storefront policy and commercial relationships rather than Schiller’s standalone oversight.
- If Apple’s reported health-team transfer also proceeds, Cue’s group gains a wider mandate across consumer software businesses, concentrating cross-product prioritization in one organization.
Third-order effects
- The reorganization points toward Apple treating the App Store less as a separately supervised platform and more as part of a unified services portfolio.
- A larger Cue remit under Ternus would make internal reporting lines an increasingly important lever for coordinating Apple’s recurring consumer-service businesses.
The trend: Apple is consolidating ownership of consumer software and service businesses under Eddy Cue as John Ternus’s leadership structure takes shape.