Today marks a major turning point for Apple – Tim Cook steps down as CEO and John Ternus takes the reins. Cook has been with Apple since 1998 and became CEO in 2011 after Steve Jobs resigned due to health reasons.
The iPhone 5, 5s and 5c were the last models designed with oversight by Jobs. Jobs passed just days after the iPhone 4s was unveiled, but he still influenced the design of the 5-series during its development. Everything after that has been under the guiding hand of Cook.
That said, John Ternus held the post of Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering until today. He led “all hardware engineering, including the teams behind iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Vision Pro and more,” according to his bio on apple.com.
Departing CEO Tim Cook (left) and Apple’s new chief, John Ternus (right)
In other words, Ternus is a hardware guy – which is a good fit since Apple is a hardware company. Yes, it develops its own OS and its own apps, but those were only ever in service to the hardware – you can’t run iOS on anything other than an iPhone and you can’t even run Safari on anything other than an Apple machine these days (there used to be a Windows version way back when). Ternus is credited with products like the AirPods, the iPhone Air and the MacBook Neo.
Tim Cook remains with Apple as executive chairman.
Cook wrote the following note before leaving the CEO office yesterday: Sending lots of love to the Apple community on my last day as CEO. My title changes tomorrow, but the love I have for the Apple community never will. Thank you for being a constant source of inspiration. My gratitude is endless, and I’m excited for the next chapter!