Mac OS X father leaving Apple

A long-time lieutenant to Steve Jobs and the executive who led the development of the Mac OS X since its beginning is leaving the company.

Bertrand Serlet said in a statement earlier today that after 22 years, he wanted "to focus less on products and more on science."

Craig Federighi, currently the vice president of Mac software engineering, will replace Serlet.

Serlet is an executive with roots that extend back to Xerox PARC as well as NeXT, the company Jobs led before selling it to Apple. At Apple, he became senior vice president in 2003.

The timing is bound to raise questions as the next version of the Mac operating system is slated for release in the summer. So why leave Apple smack in the middle of a big project? Cue the speculation corner - and this observation from Gizmodo offers food for thought: "It's not hard to imagine that the diminishing role of Apple's desktop OS has played a big part on this decision. Or maybe he's just tired, after more than two decades working with El Jobso. It's most probably a combination of both."

You can read more about Serlet here.