Mr. Williams was long considered a leading candidate to replace Tim Cook as the company’s next chief executive.

Apple Inc. Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams is retiring as the company’s longtime No. 2, marking a major changing of the guard at an already tumultuous time for the iPhone maker.Williams will step down as COO this month before retiring from the company later in the year,

Apple (AAPL) has announced that its longtime Chief Operating Officer (COO) Jeff Williams is retiring after spending 27-years at the consumer electronics giant. Current operations leader Sabih Khan will take over the COO role later in July of this