The John Ternus era begins at Apple

When Tim Cook took over as Apple’s CEO, he did not try to fill the big shoes of its legendary founder and product visionary Steve Jobs. Instead, he took Jobs’s advice: “Never ask what I would do, just do the right thing.”

Fifteen years on, having taken the iPhone maker from a US$350-billion company to a more than $4.5-trillion behemoth, Cook will pass the baton to Apple hardware chief John Ternus, who will steering the company in the AI era.Apple CEO succession; Tim Cook executive chairman; Apple AI strategy; Apple manufacturing India

Cook will become executive chairman on 1 September, guiding Apple’s dealings with policymakers amid tense relations between its home market US and China, where many of its products are made.

Unlike Jobs’s product design genius, Cook ascended the Apple ladder by making the company’s supply chain the envy of every manufacturer. As CEO, Cook used this operations-first mindset to take Apple’s cutting-edge products to the masses.

In a perfect example of his business acumen, Cook understood Apple could make money from the customer long after the iPhone sale, turning the 2.5 billion installed iPhone user base into a recurring revenue machine. That business has outpaced growth in the company’s hardware business in recent years.

Apple’s annual sales rose from $108-billion at the start of Cook’s tenure to $416-billion in the last fiscal year, while profit grew more than fourfold to $112-billion.

Its wearables business, home to Cook-era iPhone accessories such as the Apple Watch and AirPods, brought in $35-billion in sales in fiscal 2025.

“Not only did Cook create his own path of operational and supply chain success but, he also created a ‘values-driven’ culture within Apple,” said Christopher Brown, a financial ​adviser at private wealth management firm Synovus ⁠Securities, which holds the iPhone maker’s shares. “What followed was a consumer brand loyalty and dependency flywheel that generated trillions of dollars in revenue.”

Critics have long accused Apple of losing its innovation edge in the Cook era. Cook, they say, has failed to answer what comes after the iPhone, as hardware rivals look to displace the smartphone as the default consumer device.

Cook’s tenure had other misses: a decade-long EV project Apple scrapped in 2024 just as they took off in China. The company also famously botched the launch of Apple Maps in 2012, months after Cook took charge, leading to the departure of close Jobs collaborator and software chief Scott Forstall.

Apple’s bet on the Vision Pro augmented reality headset, which debuted at a whopping $3 499 in 2023, failed to produce strong sales, and its products have lagged in AI features, including delays in revamping Siri.

“AI is the single biggest challenge for Ternus.