Cupertino, August 28: Apple, in a significant and unexpected step, has decided to lay off 100 employees in its digital services as a part of a shift in priorities for the critical division. Apple layoff has hit the employees working across different teams in Senior Vice President Eddy Cue's services group. The tech giant has let go of the employees from the teams that were responsible for the development of Apple's applications.

Bloomberg reported that the new round of Apple layoffs has hit the engineers and the team that the digital services group responsible for the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore. Besides, the tech giant announced layoffs in other services teams which included  those that run the Apple News. The reason it mentioned that the company slashed these jobs as a part of its "shift in priorities for critical division". IBM Layoffs: US Tech Giant Laying Off 1,000 Employees and Shutting Down Its R&D Division in China.

Apple Books, a free app without any subscription, allows users to find the e-books of their interest. The app can be used by up to five family members and does not require them to commit to any monthly subscription commitments. Now, the report said that this service has become less important for Apple in recent times.

Despite the Apple layoffs affecting the staff of the Apple Books app, the company would likely reportedly introduce more features over time to this service. The report highlighted that the layoffs of these teams would not mean that the company would stop focusing on the e-book services. However, the job cuts at Apple are rare but recently the company has been making significant changes following its new projects. Infosys Layoffs Not Coming Any Time Soon on Account of Generative AI, Says CEO Salil Parekh.

Earlier this year, the tech giant shut down its self-driving car project and laid off hundreds of employees. Apple was recently reported to be working on a tabletop robot which would be launched in the future having a robotic arm. Apple is set to launch its new lineup of the iPhone 16 models on September 9, 2024. 

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 28, 2024 09:45 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).