Philip W. Schiller (born June 8, 1960) is an Apple Fellow at Apple Inc. 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 entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

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 electronics engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, inventor, and entrepreneur, technology entrepreneur. In 1976, with business partner Steve ...

among a handful of other people.

Early life and career

Schiller was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 8, 1960 to a Jewish family. He graduated from

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classified ...

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 (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe System ...

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 the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United Stat ...

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

iMac iMac is a family of all-in-one Mac desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its debut in August 1998, and has evolved through seven distinct forms. In it ...

, MacBook, MacBook Pro,

iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes wa ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

, 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 iPhones and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...

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

Macworld/iWorld Macworld/iWorld was an information technology trade show with conference tracks dedicated to the Apple Macintosh platform. It was held annually in the United States during January. Originally ''Macworld Expo'' and then ''Macworld Conference & Expos ...

on January 6, 2009, and the

WWDC The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is usually held at Apple Park in California. The event is usually used to showcase new software and technologies in t ...

keynote on June 8, 2009; both presentations were typically done by Jobs himself. Among the things announced at these events were the updated MacBook Pro lines, the

iPhone 3GS The iPhone 3GS (originally styled iPhone 3G S) is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the third generation iPhone and the successor to the iPhone 3G. It was unveiled on June 8, 2009 at the WWDC 2009 which took pl ...

, and new versions of iLife and

iWork iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple Inc. for its macOS and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website. It includes the presentation application Keynote, the word processing and ...

as well as pricing and DRM changes to the

iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...

. 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 Boston College alumni Living people People from Boston