iPhone 4 Boss ‘No Longer Employed’ by Apple – Mark Papermaster Packs up his Desk

The iPhone 4 seems to be the most controversial device that Apple has released thus far and I think everyone was waiting to see that the fall-out from Apple’s antenna-gate would be.

Well – after promising to ship out a load of free cases for the iPhone 4 as a peace-offering to all that bought the new device it seems that Apple’s engineering executive who oversaw the development of the latest iPhone has now left the company.

Mark Papermaster joined Apple from IBM and although Apple has confirmed that he has left the company they’re not willing to give any more details.

According to the New York Times Papermaster had been given the boot due to a series of problems with the iPhone 4 and the upcoming fourth-gen iPod touch.

The Wall Street Journal, however, says that Mark wasn’t getting along with the culture and politics of Apple and, after a tiff with Steve Jobs, decided to quit. Apparently he hadn’t been involved in the decision-making process for quite some time.

Senior VP of Mac hardware engineering, Bob Mansfield, will now be taking over from where Papermaster left off. Mansfield is already responsible for Apple technologies such as the A4 chip, retina display and touchscreen, so it seems that it should be business as usual in iPhone development land.

Now – it’s down to Apple’s PR machine and Mansfield to get people to start trusting the brand once again.