John Ternus

In his first interview since handing Apple to John Ternus on 1 September, Tim Cook said he had timed the handover so Ternus would have momentum behind him, that he is not meddling in how Ternus runs the company, and that he had passed on the advice Steve Jobs gave him — make the job your own rather than copy your predecessor.

Bloomberg News reported that Apple's new chief executive, John Ternus, was weighing a broad overhaul of the company aimed at sharpening its engineering focus, introducing products more frequently and creating a leaner organisation.

Apple debuted the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max at Apple Store locations worldwide, alongside Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4 and AirPods 5. John Ternus, Deirdre O'Brien and Greg Joswiak greeted customers at Apple Fifth Avenue in New York.

John Ternus and Greg Joswiak participated in an interview with TechRadar and Tom’s Guide. Ternus called becoming Apple CEO an “extraordinary privilege.”

Eight days after taking over, John Ternus opened the 'Surprise and Shine' event at the Steve Jobs Theater with a Jobs-style argument that the iPhone is the ideal device for AI, then unveiled the iPhone 18 Pro at $1,199, AirPods 5, Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4, and finally the $1,999 foldable iPhone Duo. Tim Cook, now executive chairman, did not present.

Apple's first foldable opens to a 7.6-inch inner display with a nano-texture finish and closes to a 5.4-inch outer screen, in polished grade 5 titanium with a precision hinge, a dual-battery design, Apple Pencil support and the A20 Pro. It starts at $1,999 in star white and night sky, with pre-orders on October 16 and availability on October 23, the first iPhone launch to slip past September since the iPhone 12.

John Ternus's first launch as CEO led with the Pro models: a 48MP main camera with a variable aperture, a smaller Dynamic Island, the A20 Pro with a new vapor chamber, Apple's own C2 modem in both models, the largest battery-life gain in an iPhone's history on the Pro Max, and iOS 27 with Siri AI. Prices rose $100 to $1,199 and $1,299, pre-orders opened September 12 and the phones ship September 18; no standard iPhone 18 was shown, with reports pointing to a spring 2027 launch.

John Ternus sent Apple employees a memo on his first day as chief executive. He thanked employees for their warm wishes.

On John Ternus's first day as CEO Apple filed an amended 8-K setting his salary at $3 million, a prorated $2.5 million RSU award for fiscal 2026 and a $55 million target equity award for fiscal 2027, 75 percent performance-based. Tim Cook, now executive chairman, gets a $2 million salary from September 26 and a $45 million target award, half performance-based, that vests on retirement after the first anniversary of the grant.

Tim Cook told Apple employees that he was excited for John Ternus's leadership. Cook said Ternus understood how to build products that change the world.

Invitations for a September 9, 2026 event at the Steve Jobs Theater went out a week before John Ternus succeeded Tim Cook as CEO. Analysts expected the iPhone 18 Pro, Apple's first folding iPhone and new Apple Watches, with the standard iPhone 18 reportedly held back to spring 2027 as Apple splits the launch cycle.

MacRumors reported that Luca Maestri stepped down from leading Apple’s Corporate Services organization in recent weeks. The report said he remained at Apple with no responsibilities other than hosting a class at Apple University.

Bloomberg News reported that Phil Schiller stepped down from leading the App Store and product events. The report described Schiller as an Apple executive from the Steve Jobs and Tim Cook eras.

Bloomberg News reported that John Ternus hired Laura Legros for his management team. Legros had been a vice president of hardware engineering until retiring in 2022.

Tim Cook said Apple's fiscal-third-quarter call would be his final earnings call. He said John Ternus would lead subsequent earnings calls.

MacRumors reported that Apple moved product-design oversight from Kate Bergeron to Shelly Goldberg and Dave Pakula. Goldberg and Pakula had previously been Bergeron's deputies.

On the day of the CEO announcement Apple named Johny Srouji, senior vice president of Hardware Technologies and leader of Apple silicon since the A4, as chief hardware officer with immediate effect, adding the Hardware Engineering organization Ternus had run to his hardware technologies remit.

Apple said Tim Cook would become executive chairman and John Ternus, senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, would become CEO effective September 1, 2026, after a unanimous board vote and what it called a long-term succession planning process. Cook would stay CEO through the summer and, as executive chairman, engage with policymakers; Arthur Levinson would move from non-executive chairman to lead independent director and Ternus would join the board.

According to the Form 8-K Apple filed on April 20, the board appointed Ternus, then 50, as chief executive officer and a member of the board on April 17, 2026, three days before the public announcement, with both appointments effective on the September 1 transition date. The filing noted that Ternus's compensation would be disclosed in a later amendment.

MacRumors reported that Tim Cook put John Ternus in charge of Apple's design teams in the final months of 2025. The assignment expanded Ternus's responsibilities.

Apple moved Dan Riccio to a new project reporting to Tim Cook and promoted John Ternus, a Product Design hire from 2001 and a vice president of Hardware Engineering since 2013, to lead Hardware Engineering on the executive team. Cook called him a bold and visionary leader of the hardware teams.