Who Is Abidur Chowdhury, the Industrial Designer Who Introduced the iPhone Air?

Apple's “Awe Dropping” event, which introduced the iPhone 17 series, had one anomaly, and no, we are not talking about Tim Cook not doing the “one more thing” routine before unveiling the iPhone Air. Typically, the company uses executives who have worked on the device as presenters during the event, and every new and old face comes with a name and designation card at the bottom-left corner. However, when the iPhone Air was first showcased, we saw the name Abidur Chowdhury while a voice narrated its design journey, but no face to attribute it to.

Even without a face reveal, Chowdhury did manage to capture attention as he spoke about Apple's intention to “make an iPhone that feels like a piece of the future.” So, who is this industrial designer who was handed the opportunity to present the iPhone Air, but not to appear in front of the camera?

Who Is Abidur Chowdhury?

Finding information about Chowdhury is rather difficult because, unlike senior Apple executives, he does not have a dedicated page on the website. He also does not have a LinkedIn profile, which is usually the most reliable way to find an individual's professional credentials.

However, digging deeper, we were able to find his website, which mentions the “Industrial Designer” role, corroborating the information from the Apple event. As per the website, Chowdhury was born and raised in London and currently resides in San Francisco as a designer. His bio reads: “Nothing gets me more excited than creating innovative products people can't bear to be without.”

According to the contact discovery platform RocketReach, Chowdhury completed his graduation in 2017 and has a Bachelor's degree in Product Design from Loughborough University in the UK. Before joining Apple, he is said to have worked at the London-based design studio, Layer, and spent a year working as a freelance industrial design consultant. In 2019, Chowdhury is said to have joined Apple as an Industrial Designer.

While it cannot be said conclusively, it appears he either led the project or played an important role in developing the design of the iPhone Air, which is likely why he was asked to debut the slim variant of the iPhone.

Interestingly, Chowdhury highlighted that the company had to redesign the iPhone Air camera plateau (as seen in the iPhone 17 Pro models) to fit the cameras, chipset, and the system modules. The entirety of the remaining space went to fit in a high-density battery for the smartphone.