Philip W. Schiller (born June 8, 1960) is an American businessman, spokesperson, and an Apple Fellow at

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

He is a prominent figure in Apple's keynotes and has been a member of the company's executive team since

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

returned to Apple in 1997. In 2020 he became the first person in over 20 years to be appointed as an Apple Fellow, one of the company's highest-ranking positions and an honor previously bestowed on co-founder

Steve Wozniak Stephen Gary Wozniak (; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname Woz, is an American technology entrepreneur, electrical engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, and inventor. In 1976, he co-founded Apple Inc., Apple Computer with ...

among a handful of other people.

Early life and career

Schiller was born in Boston,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, on June 8, 1960, to a Jewish family. He graduated from

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

in 1982 with a B.S. in biology. Besides his role at Apple, Schiller has held a variety of positions including Vice President of Product Marketing at

Macromedia Macromedia, Inc. was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Adobe Flash, Flash and Adobe Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its riv ...

of San Francisco, California; Director of Product Marketing at FirePower Systems, Inc. of Menlo Park, California; IT Manager at Nolan, Norton & Co. of Lexington, Massachusetts; and Programmer and Systems Analyst at

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is a teaching hospital located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the original and largest clinical education and research facility of Harvard Medical School/Harvar ...

in Boston, Massachusetts. At Apple, Schiller worked on the formation and marketing of

iMac The iMac is a series of all-in-one computers from Apple Inc., sold as part of the company's Mac (computer), Mac family of computers. First introduced in 1998, it has remained a primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since and evol ...

, MacBook,

MacBook Pro The MacBook Pro is a line of Mac laptop computers developed and manufactured by Apple. Introduced in 2006, it is the high-end sibling of the MacBook family, sitting above the ultra-portable MacBook Air and previously the low-end MacBook li ...

iPod The iPod is a series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices that were designed and marketed by Apple Inc. from 2001 to 2022. The iPod Classic#1st generation, first version was released on November 10, 2001, about mon ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, and subsequent products. Schiller is credited with coming up with the idea for the original iPod's

click wheel The iPod click wheel is the navigation component of non touch-screen iPod models. It uses a combination of touch technology and traditional buttons, involving the technology of capacitive sensing, which senses the touch of the user's fingers. Th ...

interface. Schiller frequently played a supporting role in keynotes given by

, usually presenting new products like

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

s and

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

s. While Jobs was on medical leave Schiller gave several keynotes including Apple's last appearance at

Macworld/iWorld Macworld/iWorld (originally Macworld) was an information technology trade show with conference tracks dedicated to Apple Inc., Apple's Mac (computer), Mac platform. It was held annually in the United States during January. Originally ''Macworld Exp ...

on January 6, 2009, and the WWDC keynote on June 8, 2009; both presentations were typically done by Jobs himself. Among the things announced at these events were the updated

lines, the

iPhone 3GS The iPhone 3GS, stylized as , is a smartphone that was developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the List of iPhone models, third generation of the iPhone and the successor to the iPhone 3G. It was unveiled on June 8, 2009 at the Apple Worldw ...

, and new versions of

iLife iLife is a discontinued software suite for macOS and iOS developed by Apple Inc. It consists of various programs for media creation, organization, editing and publishing. At various times, it included: iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iWeb, an ...

and

iWork iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple Inc., Apple for its macOS, iPadOS, and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website. iWork includes the presentation program, presentation applicat ...

as well as pricing and DRM changes to the iTunes Store. Schiller was previously Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing before adopting his new title of Apple Fellow on August 4, 2020. Greg "Joz" Joswiak took over Schiller's previous role.

References

External links

Phil Schiller's Executive Profile at Apple
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schiller, Phil 1960 births 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American computer businesspeople Apple Inc. executives Apple Fellows Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences alumni Living people Businesspeople from Boston