Apple’s Next CEO Ternus Inherits a Bold Gamble on Hardware
Apple’s new CEO, John Ternus, will have to take on the AI challenge.
Photographer: Adam Gray/Bloomberg
In announcing on Monday that John Ternus would succeed Tim Cook as chief executive officer of Apple Inc. this year, the company’s board made it clear: We’re a hardware company, and we’re going with the hardware guy.
It’s a mission statement that bears repeating in 2026, the year of Apple’s 50th anniversary and now one that the company and its legions of fans hope will feature a smooth leadership transition. Ternus, who joined Apple in 2001 and rose through the ranks to become senior vice president of hardware engineering in 2021, will take over a company in fine strength but facing looming questions about how it shifts to the new computing paradigm of AI.