On June 27, 2026, Paul Meade, Apple's Vice President of Hardware Engineering for the Visual Products Group, confirmed his departure to join OpenAI's hardware team. Meade, who joined Apple in 2010, has been involved in the hardware development of iPhone and iPad. Since 2017, he has led the hardware engineering for Vision Pro and spearheaded the project for screenless AI smart glasses. His departure may be related to Apple's senior leadership restructuring, and Meade will collaborate with several former Apple executives to advance the development of OpenAI's next-generation AI hardware devices.
