[Left: Art Levinson, Right: Bob Iger]
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has announced today that they have named Art Levinson as the non-executive chairman of the board. He succeeds Steve Jobs, who had passed away last month after battling cancer for several years. Art joined the Apple board in 2000 and has been the longest serving co-lead director. Apple also added Disney CEO Bob Iger to the board of directors at the company. Iger is best known for overseeing the merger of Pixar and Disney.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced that Arthur Levinson is leaving their Board of Directors. Levinson is a Corporate Director at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and is a former Chairman and CEO of Genentech. I believe it is safe to say that Levinson’s departure has something to do with the FTC’s investigation of Google and Apple. Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down from the Apple Board of Directors this past August.

Levinson’s departure from Google is effective immediately which ends his 5.5 year tenure on the Board. Levinson will continue to serve on the Apple Board of Directors where he has worked for the last 9 years.

The FTC said that they were prepared to sue Google and Apple if they did not take care of their potential conflicts of interest. “Google, Apple, and Mr. Levinson should be commended for recognizing that overlapping board members between competing companies raise serious antitrust issues and for their willingness to resolve our concerns without the need for litigation,” stated FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz in an interview.

On August 3, Eric Schmidt stepped down from the Apple Inc. Board of Directors due to conflicts of interest. This Tuesday Apple’s Board of Directors will be meeting to discuss some of the possible replacements of Schmidt.  Schmidt had been an Apple Board member for about 3 years.

Some of the other board members include Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell, Avon Products CEO Andrea Jung, former Vice President of the United States Al Gore, Chrysler finance chief Jerome York, J. Crew CEO Millard Drexler, and Genentech Chairman Arthur Levinson.

It would not surprise me if Apple appoints someone highly involved in the Internet application or cloud computing space considering that Schmidt’s company is one of the best in that sector.