It's no coincidence that Bob's Mansfield, former Apple senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, is back with the company on a permanent basis now that Scott Forstall is out of the picture, according to AllThingsD. His comeback comes only a few months — eight weeks! — after retiring from the tech game. Let's just call it a prolonged vacation.

The 13-year Apple vet will now step into a his newly minted position as senior vice president of Technologies, though it's unclear what his first order of business will be. We can only hope that he and Ive will inject some life back into iOS, which has been sorely lacking in innovation for the past few years.

In Godfather-like fashion, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly made Mansfield "an offer he could not refuse," which basically means mountains of cash and a pretty significant stock pay package. Initially, Mansfield only agreed to stay on in an advisory roll. But once Forstall was shown the door, the highly regarded Mansfield rejoined the Apple crew.

"To begin, Mansfield was not a fan of Forstall's confrontational management style, and sources said he generally tried to avoid the iOS exec," AllThingsD said. Apparently, Mansfield could only stomach meeting Forstall under the condition that Cook was present to mediate. Harsh.

Will 2013 introduce a rejuvenated Apple now that Forstall is gone? That remains to be seen. It'll be truly interesting to see how the company changes its approach, if at all, next year.

[via AllThingsD]