The New York Times reported that Mark Papermaster is no longer with Apple. His position was Senior Vice President Devices Hardware Engineering. In other words, he was in charge of Apple’s mobile devices including iPad, iPhone and iPods.

His departure has been attributed to the issue surrounding iPhone 4’s controversial antenna although both he and Apple have declined to comment on the reason. Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling said to the NY Times that Papermaster’s responsibilities have since been assumed by Bob Mansfield, Senior VP of Mac Hardware Engineering.

Mansfield is also responsible for the phone’s brand new A4 processor, the excellent retina display and touchscreen technology. According to John Gruber, Papermaster was the antenna guy.

It’s rather strange for someone whose previous roles included 15 years of microprocessor development to be primarily in charge of the antenna despite his position as the head of the iPhone division. Apparently Mansfield expressed his concerns about Papermaster before his hiring.

In the iPhone 4 video, Papermaster was the only relevant Senior VP to be absent and in his place was Bob Mansfield who was given the inclusive title of Senior VP Hardware. Of course, Papermaster could simply be video shy. Now I wonder if he was in Apple’s iPhone 3GS video presentation.

At the iPhone 4 press conference on July 16, Papermaster was notably absent and it was Mansfield who went with the journalists on the campus tour following the event.

Papermaster may have taken the tumble following the so called “antennagate” but it sounds to me that the issue is greater and further than that and predated the public controversy.

By no means I’m suggesting that it was office politics, rather perhaps Papermaster simply wasn’t a good fit at Apple as they initially decided, and Mansfield happened to be the person who was assigned by Steve Jobs or Tim Cook to take over the role both publicly and internally.