Apple’s longtime hardware chief John Ternus becomes chief executive on September 1st, stepping into the role just days before the company’s fall product blitz and with a clear mandate: close the gap in artificial intelligence.
The changing of the guard will be gradual. Outgoing CEO Tim Cook moves to executive chairman and, according to reporting by Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman, will continue handling Apple’s relationships with President Donald Trump and the Chinese government while remaining available to support his successor. Board chair Art Levinson becomes lead independent director on the same date.
Ternus will not have a quiet first week. Apple’s annual autumn rollout is expected to include an unusually ambitious slate he shepherded as hardware chief: the company’s first foldable iPhone and a smart display designed to recognize who is speaking and tailor content to them. A September 9th event at Apple’s Cupertino campus is also expected to showcase new Apple Watches and a rebuilt Siri powered by large language models.
Further out, Ternus has overseen work on camera-equipped AirPods that can interpret a user’s surroundings, smart glasses, a home security system, a home display mounted on a robotic arm, and a camera-equipped pendant that can be worn as a necklace or clipped to a shirt. Those products sit at the center of Apple’s attempt to extend its decades-long run into the AI era.
Apple remains a gadget company at heart. Ternus spent 25 years helping design and refine its devices, starting as a Mac engineer before taking on iPads, AirPods, iPhones and eventually the entire hardware engineering organization. What he has less of is experience in finance, sales, legal affairs, government relations, and procurement. People close to the company told Bloomberg News he will lean heavily on COO Sabih Khan, CFO Kevan Parekh, and services chief Eddy Cue, all of whom are expected to take on larger roles.
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Making insanely great products that improve people’s lives and that protect individual data confidentiality above all. That is his job.
Hopefully he exceeds all expectations and surprises and delights 99% of us (there’s always someone who complains – ie: hand that person $100,000 they will complain about the taxes instead of appreciating the gift).
I look forward to Apple taking the lead in AI and keeping the lead on devices.