End of fifteen year reign. Tim Cook, who will score 66e candle next year, inherited Apple from founder Steve Jobs in 2011 and led the company through record and controversial stock market valuations. According to the Financial Times, the Apple brand is accelerating behind the scenes to prepare for its succession. It could change general managers as early as next year. A replacement that is not linked to Apple’s performance, but rather Tim Cook’s retirement wishes.
Therefore, speculation was rife regarding the identity of the third general manager in the company’s history. The names of software engineering chief Craig Federighi, global marketing chief Greg Joswiak, and even chief operating officer Jeff Williams have long been circulating urgently. But according to the Financial Times, now John Ternus, vice president in charge of hardware engineering, is in charge.
At 50 years old, John Ternus is currently the youngest executive at Apple, recalls the special media Gizmodo. His popularity as Tim Cook’s successor soared after a Bloomberg article last year described him as Tim Cook’s successor “president”. According to sources who praise the director who is appreciated internally, John Ternus is seen as someone “gentle, doesn’t write anything controversial in his emails, and is very careful in making decisions”.
John Ternus has led corporate America for twenty-four years. His first position of responsibility began in 2013, before being promoted to head of all hardware engineering in 2022. He gradually became responsible for iPads, then Macs, AirPods, and, in 2020, iPhone. That year, Apple also began highlighting him during well-attended product presentations: he was the one who launched the M1, the brand’s first silicon chip. And in 2025, he will still be presenting the iPhone Air.
John Ternus, this is not a revolution
If John Ternus were to follow in Tim Cook’s footsteps, he would focus more on engineering than operations. On the one hand, Tim Cook, with a Master of Business Administration (MBA), rose through the ranks at Apple in operations, sales handling and supply chain. On the other hand, John Ternus studied mechanical engineering and worked on virtual reality headsets before joining Apple’s product design team in 2001.
But John Ternus also had his critics, who didn’t like his promotion prospects. Another internal source told Bloomberg that he was nothing more than a politician, struggling to gain the respect of some of Apple’s top engineers. While some praised his prudence, others saw it as an unwillingness to innovate: John Ternus was not interested in future bets and future technologies.
Other skeptics also point to the fact that John Ternus was not involved in some of Apple’s most ambitious products in recent years. But this is probably for the best: this way, the major failures of the Vision Pro helmet and autonomous cars do not affect it.
According to Gizmodo, John Ternus has the potential to refresh the brand’s image while maintaining a certain stability. It must be said that some Apple fans associate Tim Cook’s reign with slow innovation. Even though many new products have been launched, at that time “This is a revolution” it seems a long way off when we look at certain iPhone works.
This company from California was also ridiculed for its failure to take part in the artificial intelligence race. The recent delay of the new AI-powered version of Siri shows this again. Appointing a general manager of the hardware branch, which has participated in most of Apple’s biggest releases for a quarter of a century, might help turn things around.
