Mark Papermaster, (Ex) senior vice-president, Apple

Ex?

Afraid so. Until last week, Mr Papermaster was Apple's senior vice-president of devices hardware engineering. But no longer.

That's an awfully long job title

Well it was, anyway. All you need to know is that he was the bloke in charge of making sure Apple's products – like the new iPhone 4 – worked properly.

Ah, I'm hearing you now

It's a shame not all iPhone 4 customers have been able to say the same – not least for Mr Papermaster himself. He appears to have paid the price for the embarrassing failure of some of the phones to receive calls if they're held the wrong way.

He's got the sack you mean?

Apple isn't saying whether he jumped or was pushed, but someone was going to have to carry the can for the iPhone 4 debacle. The company has certainly removed all his details from its corporate web pages with indecent haste.

Will he bounce back?

Let's hope so – everyone deserves a second chance, after all. Besides, Mr Papermaster has enjoyed a long and successful career in this business. So much so that IBM, his former employer, took Apple to court when it hired him 16 months ago. A deal was reached in which he had to go on gardening leave for six months and promise not to divulge any IBM corporate secrets.

I bet they wish they hadn't bothered now

Maybe, though until now Apple has always spoken very highly of his engineering skills and his leadership. The internet chatter, however, is that Mr Papermaster hasn't quite seen eye to eye with Apple boss Steve Jobs for a little while. One problem could be that he started at the company during a time when Mr Jobs was off work recovering from his liver transplant. People say Apple's executives had a little more autonomy during those days.

A personality clash, then?

Well let's just say Mr Jobs is known for a "hands-on" management style.