In his first major sit-down as Apple’s new chief executive, John Ternus sat with French host Mouloud Achour on Clique and talked through the product that defined his first keynote, the surprising path that put him in the job, and how Apple wants people to live with its devices.
Ternus, a 25-year Apple veteran and former hardware engineering lead, took over from Tim Cook on September 1, 2026. Days later he stood on stage and delivered the line every Apple event audience waits for: “one more thing.” That thing was the iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable phone.
He said the company refused to copy the usual foldable formula of two phone-shaped screens taped together. “We didn’t want to just do what we’d seen other people do… and then you get this weird square thing.” Instead the team started from a large-screen experience they already knew from iPad and settled on a √2:1 aspect ratio that stays the same whether the device is open or closed. Open, it becomes a wide canvas for movies, games, and split-screen work. Closed, it still looks and feels like a phone.
The hardest parts, he said, were the hinge, the inner display, software that has to feel seamless on both screens, and managing two battery cells so the user only ever sees one. “It takes lots of time, lots of trials.” His favorite detail is the opening animation that sweeps across the screen. “It’s just sort of whimsical and fun… it brings a smile to your face.”
Ternus was candid about how the CEO job arrived. Cook and the board asked him if he would consider it. “The good news is I was sitting down,” he said, “because I never in a million years would have imagined that happening.” He talked it over with his wife. Her reply, he recalled: “You love Apple. Of course you have to do this.”
He chose the French show in part because he and Achour hit it off at WWDC, and because Apple has more than 2,500 employees in France after 40 years in the country. “There’s so much passion for design and culture in France that I think it’s just always been very symbiotic with Apple.”
On children and screens, Ternus rejected the idea that the people who design phones keep them away from their own kids. Devices open doors to creation and learning that did not exist when he was young — kids in elementary school now design and 3D-print objects after watching YouTube. The trade-off is real: apps fight for attention, and parents still have to protect sleep and outdoor time. Apple’s answer, he said, is the parental-control tools it has built because so many people inside the company are living the same problem.
He also restated Apple’s line on artificial intelligence: Siri AI is a tool, not a companion. “Siri AI is not your friend.”
The conversation kept returning to the same theme Ternus used on stage — the work of thousands of people, the obsessive attention to small details, and the belief that the team will “find a way” when a product is late and still broken. After 25 years, he said, that trust has replaced the anxiety he used to feel at the end of every program.
MacDailyNews Take: This interview is the first long look at Apple’s new boss in his own words: an engineer who still carries two phones in his pocket, still gets goosebumps saying “one more thing,” and still talks about products as real magic.
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