We usually don’t cover executive comings and goings here at Technologizer, but this onee merits a mention: Apple Senior Vice President Tony Fadell has left full-time work at Apple and will be an advisor to the company. Fadell was not only the head of the company’s iPod division, but the guy who came up with the idea of the iPod in the first place. In fact, the former Philips employee–anyone remember Philips PDAs such as the Velo?–came up with the idea of the iPod on his own, and approached Apple with it. I’m pretty sure that Steve Jobs is awfully glad that Fadell came to Apple, and that Apple was smart enough to see the idea’s potential.

(It makes for an unanswerable but fun what-if question to muse on what might have been if Fadell had sold the iPod idea to a different company: There’s probably an alternate universe in which it ended up being a product from Philips, Creative, Rio, or some other company. It might have been very successful, but it also wouldn’t have been the iPod that Apple made. And speaking of what-ifs, where would Apple be today if Fadell hadn’t approached it with the iPod idea? Would it have ended up making an iPod anyhow? We’ll never know…)

Fadell is being replaced by Mark Papermaster, a former IBM executive. IBM is suing him, saying that his contract with Big Blue had a non-compete clause which prohibits him from working for Apple.

 
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