Apple on Monday announced that John Ternus, senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, will become Apple’s next chief executive officer effective on September 1, 2026. Tim Cook will then become executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors.
Rolfe Winkler for The Wall Street Journal:
Ternus will follow two corporate legends. Steve Jobs developed the most lucrative product in history, the iPhone. Cook squeezed trillions of dollars of value from the smartphone thanks to the supply chain he built and the services and ancillary products he rolled out.
As Cook did when he succeeded Jobs, Ternus is taking over as a relative unknown to the outside world. If Jobs was a product visionary and Cook a supply chain guru, Ternus is a hardware savant who exists somewhere in the middle.
A mechanical engineer by background, who most recently has led hardware engineering for all of Apple’s products, Ternus takes Apple’s reins at a critical time in its history. The company is at the top of its game selling iPhones, after rolling out popular new models last fall. Yet it is struggling to find its next hit product.
It also must remake itself in the age of artificial intelligence. After decades defining how people interact with computing devices, first on their desktops and then in their hands, Apple has fallen behind rival companies who are leading the next great computing platform with chatbots that converse like humans. Apple’s own Siri, which is set to get an AI brain transplant this year, has been a Neanderthal by comparison…
Ask anyone from Apple what they think of Ternus, and they all say the same thing: He’s a super nice guy… What he isn’t known for is taking big, risky swings, said people familiar with Ternus’s tenure, leaving open the question of whether he can provide the product vision that company critics say has been absent since Jobs died.
MacDailyNews Take: 🤞🏻
As we wrote last July (hopefully, Ternus will surprise us):
What should happen at Apple:
- Tim Cook retires (yesterday, preferably)
- Cook does not get Chairman of the Board position
- Apple hires a charismatic, visionary CEO in the mold of Jobs
- Company returns to path of inventive innovation
What likely will happen at Apple:
- Tim Cook hangs on for years
- When he finally retires as CEO, he becomes Chairman
- Apple hires another bland, myopic CEO in the mold of Cook
- Company continues on path of iterative stagnation
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John will Ternus around
John isn’t known for big risky swings?
What could he do as the HW lead? He executes what’s set above him.
And Tim Cook is known for Big Risky plays? Please…. Vision Pro was a risk, only because it was priced so stupidly, it became a liability. If it were Jobs, he would have pushed and demanded enough displays be available to sell 10 million in year one, with a $1799 price point. Because Steve had a vision – pun intended.
Tim Cook could have leapfrogged with hydrogen cars, and instead went to the puck was at, not where the puck was going to be, by trying to make me too EV’s that would be different than the market how?…
Completely missing AI? Tim isn’t a visionary, he’s been a great caretaker. He relied on others to know how to do AI and its value, as he is incapable of seeing a larger vision and his team was engrossed in “other things” and bricked on AI completely.
Yah, I don’t think John can screw things up worse than Tim has the last 5 years. If he’s the same, then you get what we had. If he’s marginally better and wants to make his mark, push the teams to be absolutely great once more, visionary and have a massive impact on the world, let’s see if he has that in him or not.
Good time to buy the stock this AM me thinks!
John, your first assignment is to bring back the Airport router.
I like my Netgear WIFI 7 MESH network just fine, but it could be even better with a built-in SSD Time Machine option, or at least a USB-C port.
YES!! I still keep my 3 of them around dreaming of a return to function. One could have numerous different plug-in speaker units and use optic connectors for super quality. Great reception (due to more than one Airport unit) anywhere in a large house; and the backups were so conveniently taken care of without a second thought using the nice white units with no need for monthly payments for the Cloud.
Okay, the beating games are just beginning, wondering how much balls John Ternus would tolerate it like Tìm Apple 🍎?.
I have told and I will tell again. By end of the year, Apple will be Number 1 in AI.
I hate to keep asking, sometimes I’ve been blocked for repeating the question but I still don’t know who this mythical “Apple hires a charismatic, visionary CEO in the mold of Jobs” human actually is?
I’ll this time that if you can name said perfect CEO, I’d like to work for that person, it would be engaging instead of the more bland rest of the world.
Please name that 1 or 10 people who fit that bill and I’ll look up what company they are at, because Apple doesn’t seem to know who that actually is either.
You can’t blame John for AI debacle. He brought Neo to the world.