Apple's iPod Chief Withdraws From Role

Apple this week announced the that Tony Fadell, senior vice president of the company’s iPod division will withdraw from his role The Wall Street Journal reports. According to Venture Beat, Fadell cited “personal reasons” by way of explanation for his plans to take a step back from his position as head of the division.

While Fadell’s decision to step back from iPods (he’ll reportedly remain at Apple as an adviser to Steve Jobs) is something of a head scratcher, it comes just a week after reports emerged that the company would be hiring a former IBM employee by the name of Mark Papermaster.

Last week news emerged that Apple had recently hired Mark Papermaster, former vice president of microprocessor technology development at IBM. While Apple was keeping fairly quiet about the whole affair, IBM filed a lawsuit claiming Papermaster was in violation of a noncompete agreement he had signed while working for the company.

While working for Big Blue, Papermaster was one of the company’s top 300 managers. IBM claims he signed noncompete agreement which prevents him from accepting a job with a competitor for a full year following his departure from the company. IBM believes that should Papermaster go ahead with his move to Apple he will be "providing to Apple technical and strategic advice on a variety of issues".

When Apple purchased PA Semi early this year, CEO Steve Jobs said the that the company would use the smaller company to build custom chips for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

See Apple’s official announcement regarding the recent news here.