Dan Riccio

Dan Riccio is an American engineer and former executive. He served as Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering, reporting to CEO Tim Cook, until 2021. Riccio led the Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, HomePod, AirPods, and Apple Watch engineering teams, which have produced numerous products.^[1][2] He was succeeded by John Ternus on January 25, 2021.^[3] He retired from Apple in October 2024.

Dan Riccio
Born	Daniel J. Riccio
Alma mater	University of Massachusetts Amherst (B.A.) Mechanical engineering
Occupations	Retired vice president and director at Apple Inc.

Biography

Riccio holds a Doctor of Humanities honoris causa from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Before Apple, Riccio worked at Compaq as senior manager of mechanical engineering, responsible for the mechanical design of consumer PC products.^[4]

He joined Apple in 1998 as vice president of product design and in 2010 was named vice president of iPad hardware engineering. Since joining Apple, Riccio has been a key contributor to most of the company's hardware, including all iPad products.

Riccio officially announced the cancellation of AirPower in 2019.^[5] On January 26, 2021, Apple announced that Riccio would transition to a new role focusing on a new project and reporting to CEO Tim Cook.^[6]

On January 25, 2021, he was succeeded by John Ternus as SVP of hardware engineering, and has transitioned to an unnamed role at Apple working on a new project,^[7] rumored to be an augmented reality and virtual reality headset,^[8] later becoming the Apple Vision Pro.

On September 15, 2025, Riccio announced a $50 Million gift to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, resulting in the renaming of their engineering college the Daniel J. Riccio Jr. College of Engineering.