San Francisco (United States) (AFP) - John Ternus will take over as CEO of Apple on Tuesday, inheriting a company that dominates the smartphone market but lags behind its rivals in artificial intelligence.

First modification: 08/31/2026 - 14:21 Last modification: 08/31/2026 - 21:30

One of his biggest challenges will be balancing the company's dependence on China while facing intense political pressure from the White House.

The transfer ends 15 years of leadership by Tim Cook, and involves replacing the operations specialist who built Apple's supply chain with the engineer who created its hardware.

Ternus, 51, joined Apple's design team in 2001 and rose to become senior vice president of hardware engineering, reporting to Cook.

He leads the engineering teams responsible for Apple's entire range of products, including the iPhones that generate the majority of the company's revenue.

You'll barely have a week to settle in, as Apple will hold its annual iPhone event on September 9, where it's expected to unveil its first foldable phone.

"Tim Cook left the house in phenomenal condition," said Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at investment firm Yorkville Ives & Co. "But now it's about Ternus defining the AI ​​chapter."

Ives & Co hopes the new CEO will lean on what he knows best. "There's no reason to fix what's already working," he said, predicting that Ternus will focus on hardware innovation while keeping Cook's supply chain intact.

Some analysts had argued that software chief Craig Federighi was the most logical choice for a company racing to catch up with competitors in AI.

Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies, said that view fails to understand how consumers actually adopt technology.

"Consumers are still buying hardware first, and it's going to be that way for a long time," he said.

Cook said in a memo sent to employees that "few people understand what it takes to create products that change the world the way John does."

He also paid tribute to Apple founder Steve Jobs in his writing. "We have made it possible to leave our 'mark on the universe,' as Steve described at the time."

Ternus earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an engineer at Virtual Research Systems before joining Apple.

Within the company he is credited with having promoted a strategy to make products more durable, reliable and resistant.

The most difficult question is what kind of leader he will become.

"Not even those who know him now know him as CEO," Milanesi observes. "You may know it as a head of engineering, but once you're CEO, things change."

"Learn as you go"

Nowhere is that gap wider than in the geopolitical role Cook skillfully played, courting both Beijing and Donald Trump's White House to protect a supply chain that relies heavily on China.

Apple's manufacturing operation is one of the most complex in corporate history: a network of hundreds of suppliers and assembly lines that Cook patiently built over decades.

In recent years, Cook has begun moving some work elsewhere — "iPhone assembly to India, other production processes to Vietnam" — but diversification has been gradual and China, one of Apple's largest consumer markets, remains the mainstay of the system.

To complicate matters, Trump has repeatedly demanded that Apple manufacture iPhones on American soil, threatening tariffs on those produced abroad.

Cook avoided the harshest blows of Trump's trade war by cultivating a direct relationship with the president, making investment commitments to the United States and political donations, all while keeping Beijing on his side.

The complicated political terrain will be new for Ternus.

"He knows Apple Park like the back of his hand when it comes to hardware," Ives said of Ternus. "But on the global stage, that's probably one of the areas where you're going to have to learn as you go."

Cook doesn't go far. He will become executive chairman of Apple's board of directors on the same day, with a mandate that the company says includes engaging with policymakers around the world.

"That was actually very smart," said Milanesi, who argued that the deal frees Ternus from a role that Cook has managed alone for years.

© 2026 AFP

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