Graeme Devine, Apple’s head of iPhone Game Technologies, announced he has left the company so he can return to game development, according to Kotaku. Mr. Devine was hired by Apple last year and was tasked to role ensure quality games were available for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
“My job there was basically to make gaming on the iOS devices fantastic,” he said. “Basically that meant looking at the technologies involved and making sure the software played well with the hardware, to look at upcoming hardware/API and say ‘Yup, that is a good thing’.”
Mr. Devine wasn’t a stranger to the gaming community before coming to Apple. He spent years working with id Software, and before that he founded Trilobyte.
There isn’t any word yet on whether or not Apple plans to fill Mr. Devine’s vacancy, and Apple hasn’t commented on his departure. Mr. Devine, however, said that iOS gaming fans and developers don’t have anything to worry about.
“Apple has the smartest and most talented group of people I have ever worked with,” he said. “I can’t comment on what’s next inside Apple, but I can tell you, they really do ‘get’ gaming.”
Mr. Devine is already working on a new Mac game, and he plans to develop games for iOS as well.