Apple’s Boldest Move Since The iPhone? Why John Ternus Is The Key To Its Future

This article was originally published on Inc.com.

In announcing that CEO Tim Cook, 65, will soon be stepping aside to become executive chair of the Board, Apple just perfectly demonstrated “Apple being Apple.” The news came late on an otherwise mundane Monday night, at the same time as Apple has been riding a wave of positive publicity about its exciting entry-level new MacBook Neo. The announcement was carefully timed, seemed meticulously thought out, and thoughtfully and calmly executed.

The succession plan, which will see insider John Ternus step into the CEO role on September 1st, was designed just like an Apple product, if you think about it. Even the photo of a smiling Cook and Ternus that accompanied the press release is quintessentially Apple-esque.

So, who exactly is John Ternus? And why did Apple choose him? Can he live up to Apple’s high standards?

By all accounts, yes. Ternus has appeared numerous times during recent Apple keynote addresses, the all-important moments when the company announces new hardware and software. Cook sometimes appeared slow and staid in these events, in contrast to Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi, who’s been happy to bounce, joke, and provide cheerful comic relief. 

But Ternus—who introduced Apple’s flagship iPhone Air in Apple’s big September event—has a different style. He has a twinkle in his eye, a broad smile, calm measured voice, and he appears self-assured. Ternus is 50 years old, the same age as Cook was when he became CEO. His public image is just right.

Ternus is currently senior vice president of hardware, and he’s long been connected with the all-important hardware development stream inside the tech giant. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and MSN reports that he joined Apple way back in 2001—working, at first, on Apple’s expensive pro-level Cinema Display computer monitors.

Even as he rose through the ranks on the hardware side of things, Apple released the iPod, then the iPhone, and later the iPad, AirPods, and Apple Watch. These are all products that came to define, if not dominate, the hardware niches they occupy. In 2013 Ternus had risen to vice-president of hardware engineering, and in 2021 he was promoted to the executive team, reporting directly to Cook.

Cook has been quietly preparing Ternus to take the CEO role for “months,” MSN says, apparently asking him to informally take over some leadership duties at the end of 2025. He’s also recently taken on management of a new hardware prototyping team, and has assumed lead of the Apple Watch’s hardware engineering. 

Why John Ternus was the smart choice

Tim Cook, who took Apple’s reins in August 2011 as legendary CEO Steve Jobs stepped aside due to his battle with pancreatic cancer, has long been known as a supply chain guy. Logistics and supply chain management isn’t the sexiest of jobs. It lacks, for example, the panache of “design chief” (which former Apple design lead Jony Ive definitely embodied). It sounds boring, methodical.

Yet under Cook’s careful management, which saw Apple take a highly vertically integrated approach to its manufacturing processes, Apple became the world’s first company worth over a trillion dollars in 2018. Under Cook, you can argue the company carefully managed its product portfolio, and quietly innovated.

But in 2026, Apple is at a turning point. 

Apart from its controversial Vision Pro VR headset, which was released in 2024, Apple hasn’t unveiled a dramatic new paradigm-shifting piece of hardware in years. The company has faced criticism recently for falling behind the cutting edge, especially when it comes to the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. Many people feel that it’s time for Apple to take some bold new steps. 

The Apple rumor mill is busily grinding away, and it seems entirely possible that one of the first new devices Ternus will be in charge of revealing is Apple’s effort at augmented reality glasses. Meta, in collaboration with leading sunglasses brand Ray-Ban, has seen some successes in this market. But Meta’s data-scraping habits and privacy policies are controversial, and have dogged the reputation of these new devices. Apple, with a focus on user privacy and careful, perfectionist user-experience design, could be poised to dominate the scene.

Meanwhile, AI is sweeping the world, and Apple’s flagship AI digital assistant Siri has fallen far behind rivals like ChatGPT. But the company is poised to reveal a new AI-powered Siri at its Worldwide Developers Conference event in June, which will be the last one that Cook helms. We can only expect that, under Ternus, Apple’s effort to integrate AI into its products will build on these newly-cemented foundations.

Perhaps it’s the perfect time for Apple’s leader to switch from being a slow, steady supply chain expert to a future-facing hardware expert. Only time will tell if Ternus is precisely the right choice, but all signals seem to be pointing that way. And, underneath all this news, there’s a very Apple-flavored lesson for every company about leadership succession planning.