Analysts said software chief Craig Federighi was the logical pick for Apple’s AI push<\/p>\n
Apple’s Senior Vice President Hardware Engineering John Ternus attends the premiere of season four of the Apple TV series “Ted Lasso” at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, California, US, July 27, 2026. REUTERS <\/p>\n
John Ternus takes over as Apple\u2019s chief executive on Tuesday, inheriting a company that towers over the smartphone market but trails its rivals in artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n
One of his biggest challenges will be balancing the company\u2019s dependence on China while parrying acute political pressure from the White House.<\/p>\n
The handover ends Tim Cook\u2019s 15-year run, replacing the operations specialist who built Apple\u2019s supply chain with the engineer who built its hardware.<\/p>\n
Ternus, 51, joined Apple\u2019s design team in 2001 and worked his way up to senior vice president of hardware engineering, reporting to Cook.<\/p>\n
He leads the engineering teams behind Apple\u2019s entire product lineup, including the iPhones that generate most of the company\u2019s revenue.<\/p>\n
He gets barely a week to settle in, with Apple holding its annual iPhone event on September 9, where it is expected to unveil its first foldable handset.<\/p>\n
\u201cTim Cook left the house in phenomenal order,\u201d said Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at investment firm Yorkville Ives & Co.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut now it\u2019s about Ternus defining the AI chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ives expects the new chief executive to lean into what he knows.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no reason to fix what\u2019s already working,\u201d he said, predicting Ternus will concentrate on hardware innovation while leaving Cook\u2019s supply chain intact.<\/p>\n
Some analysts had argued software chief Craig Federighi was the more logical pick for a company scrambling to catch up on AI.<\/p>\n
Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies, said that misreads how consumers actually adopt technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsumers are still buying hardware first, and it\u2019s going to be like that for a long time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to discover the value of AI if you\u2019re not interested in the hardware.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ternus earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an engineer at Virtual Research Systems before joining Apple.<\/p>\n
Inside the company he is credited with driving a push to make products more durable, reliable and resilient, and with design work that cut their carbon footprint.<\/p>\n
Read More: <\/strong>Sony, Warner sue Anthropic over alleged mass copyright infringement<\/a><\/p>\n The harder question is what kind of leader he becomes.<\/p>\n \u201cEven people that know him now don\u2019t know him as a CEO,\u201d Milanesi said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou might know him as the head of engineering, but once you\u2019re CEO, things change. Your responsibility is bigger, your power is bigger. You\u2019re dancing a different kind of dance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Learn on the job\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Nowhere is that gap wider than in the geopolitical role Cook excelled at, courting both Beijing and Donald Trump\u2019s White House to protect a supply chain that runs largely through China.<\/p>\n Apple\u2019s manufacturing operation is among the most complex in corporate history, a web of hundreds of suppliers and assembly lines that Cook painstakingly built over decades.<\/p>\n