The latest to leave is Christopher Stringer, who has not said where he is going next but it follows Apple’s industrial designer, Danny Coster who left to join GoPro.

Stringer has, according to the report, been at the company for 21 years and in Apple's 2012 patent lawsuit against Samsung he represented the team.

During the case, he said he had been involved with the design of every Apple product since 1995. He was involved with the design of the first iPhone and said Samsung had "ripped off" the team's work.

"It's a huge leap in imagination to come up with something new," Stringer said at the time. "That's what we did."

In 2015 Apple promoted Ive to Chief Design Officer, and made another long-time employee, Richard Howarth, vice president of industrial design.