One of Apple’s lead designers for Safari has departed the company to join The Browser Company. The news was announced today by Josh Miller, CEO of The Browser Company.
The Browser Company is the company behind the increasingly popular Arc web browser, which claims to offer “a calmer, more personal” internet browsing experience.
In his announcement on social media, Miller said that Charlie Deets is joining The Browser Company after five years at Apple. Miller describes Deets as one of the two Safari lead designers on Apple.
According to his LinkedIn, Deets joined Apple in May 2019 and worked across “Safari, Home, Privacy, Accessibility, and Screen Sharing” at the company. Prior to his time at Apple, he spent five and a half years as a Lead Product Designer at Meta, working across Facebook and WhatsApp.
Deets confirmed his move to The Browser Company on his personal Twitter account. He also retweeted a post that credits him with creating the “swipe to reply” gesture during his time at Meta.
Last month, The Browser Company announced that it had raised $50 million at a $550 million valuation. The company says that Arc will be “generally available on Windows, Mac, and iOS” with a single cross-platform syncing system by this summer.
“We’re imagining a browser that can think as quickly as we do, take work off of our plates, and pull our creativity forward,” The Browser Company says on its website. “A browser equipped for the way we use the internet in 2024, and foundational for how we hope to use it in the future.”
Arc has added an array of AI-focused features recently, setting itself apart from Safari. Whether Apple has any major new AI features planned for Safari as part of iOS 18 this year remains to be seen.
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