There are big changes afoot at the top of Apple’s App Store, starting with the departure of longtime leader Matt Fischer.
Bloomberg first broke the news earlier today, which was later confirmed by Fischer himself in a LinkedIn post.
Fischer said that he had “made the decision to step away” from Apple, and that leaving had been on his mind “for some time”. He also confirmed Apple will be “reorganizing the team to better manage new challenges and opportunities”.
Carson Oliver and Ann Thai would be stepping up to lead the new-look App Store organisation, Fischer said. Bloomberg’s report suggests Oliver will run the App Store, while Thai will oversee the new group handling third party stores, like the Epic Games Store, which launched on Friday in the EU. Fischer will be staying on until mid-October to manage the transition, he said.
The outgoing exec also paid tribute to current and former colleagues Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Eddy Cue, and Phil Schiller, and thanked his team “for their commitment to our customers, to our developers, and to each other.”
He added: “I’m immensely proud of what we’ve built together — a platform with over 1 billion customers worldwide, with developers generating over $1 trillion in total billings and sales in the App Store ecosystem in 2022 alone.”
It’s been a trying time for the App Store team after long legal battles with Epic over its alleged monopoly. Governments and regulators around the world are also increasingly forcing Apple to open up its storefront to greater competition, and it also has an incoming court battle with the US Justice Department to contend with.
There have also been multiple dramas revolving around its optional new App Store terms for EU developers, which have been likened to Unity’s unpopular Runtime Fee policy. Apple’s Arcade team has also been accused of treating developers poorly, as we reported in February and July of this year.
