John Ternus, Apple's New Boss, Turns Out to Be the Creator of the iPhone Air
John Ternus, Apple’s New Boss, Turns Out to Be the Creator of the iPhone Air
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Tim Cook has officially stepped down from his position as CEO of Apple after 15 years. His successor is John Ternus, who will assume the role starting 1 September 2026.
In addition to the CEO position, the 50-year-old will also become a member of Apple’s board of directors. Meanwhile, Cook will become the company’s executive chairman.
Ternus himself is no stranger to Apple. He has worked at the company for 25 years.
Here is a summary of Ternus’s career journey, quoted from Reuters, Tuesday (21/4/2026).
Ternus is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. There, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. Before joining Apple, he worked as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems.
It was only in 2001 that he joined Apple. At that time, he worked for the product design team. Ternus became vice president of hardware in 2013. Eight years later, he joined the executive team.
At that time, Ternus worked as senior vice president of hardware engineering, reporting directly to Cook, who was still CEO.
His nearly two decades of experience in hardware has contributed to the success of many Apple products. He worked on the team behind the design of the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods devices.
Ternus also played an important role in the sales of Mac products some time ago. In addition, he helped lead the team behind the latest iPhone, one of which is the iPhone Air, Apple’s first thin phone and the biggest update since 2017.
According to CNBC International, Ternus’s biggest challenge as CEO is to drive AI adoption for Apple’s products. Currently, Apple is lagging behind other technology companies such as Google and Meta in AI development.
Although the iPhone 17 is selling well, Apple has been criticised by investors because its latest product lacks advanced AI technology. Apple has also continued to delay the launch of its latest voice assistant, Siri. Instead of using its own AI model, Apple has decided to use Google’s Gemini AI model in the Siri product.