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The MacRumors Show: Tim Cook to Step Down as Apple CEO

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On this week's special episode of The MacRumors Show, we discuss Apple's bombshell announcement that Tim Cook will step down as CEO on September 1, 2026, with hardware engineering chief John Ternus set to succeed him.


Cook will transition to executive chairman, where he will "assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world." The transition was approved by the board and is the result of a "thoughtful, long-term succession planning process." Current board chair Arthur Levinson will become the lead independent director. Cook has served as Apple's CEO since 2011.

Ternus, who has spent nearly his entire career at Apple, will join the board ahead of assuming the CEO role. He is a product person in the mold of Steve Jobs rather than a supply chain operator like Cook, and according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, he is expected to take a more centralized approach to decision-making. "If you go to Tim with 'A' or 'B,' he won't pick," one person who has worked closely with both executives told Gurman. "Ternus will make decisions." Ternus will take over in time to oversee the launch of the iPhone 18 Pro models and Apple's first foldable iPhone, both expected in September.

Alongside the leadership transition, Apple said that Johny Srouji, currently SVP of Hardware Technologies, will take on an expanded role as Chief Hardware Officer, leading Hardware Engineering and reporting to Ternus. Srouji's remit will cover everything from product design to system engineering to reliability and durability testing. Cook described Srouji as having "played a singular role in driving Apple's silicon strategy" and said his influence has been felt "not just inside the company, but across the industry."

In a statement, Cook said leading Apple has been the "greatest privilege" of his life and described Ternus as "a visionary whose contributions to Apple over 25 years are already too numerous to count." Ternus said he is "filled with optimism" about what Apple can achieve in the years to come, adding that he promises to "lead with the values and vision that have come to define this special place for half a century."

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Article Link: The MacRumors Show: Tim Cook to Step Down as Apple CEO
 
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https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/24/the-macrumors-show-tim-cook-to-step-down/
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MR, why do your podcast screenshots always appear partly in Chinese?
One of my posts was once deleted because it was in French. I understand the point of this site being in English, but please lead by example.
 
I know Cook is credited for tremendous growth of Apple, but how does it compare to other tech companies? A quick Gemini search suggestsbthat growth is comparable to other giants or even slower. What he did is solidify the way Apple can scale things withal lot of predictability. This is equally important for investors to see safety.
 
You only have to look at their educational background to understand their perspectives.

Tim Cook is an industrial engineer with an MBA--both of these point to his being a process guy and he has proved himself to be outstanding in this regard: beefing up Apple's supply chain, making it capable of accommodating just-in-time processing of orders (except of course at product launch of very popular products), and shoring up contacts with both suppliers and regulators.

John Ternus OTOH has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and, as his capstone project at Penn, designed a mechanical feeding arm that allows quadriplegics to feed themselves using only head movements. That's a very ambitious project for an undergraduate, especially when you realize he was doing it 25 years ago (plus or minus). So, of course, he's a product guy first. But he clearly has a good handle on process as well; it's just not his forte, products are.

The ambition evidenced in that years-ago capstone project bodes very well for Ternus' ability to come up with the innovative products AAPL is known for. You point out some of the projecs he spearheaded at AAPL that proved to be failures, but you did not point out that, for all his successes, Steve Jobs had an equal number of spectacular failures: the Pippin, the Newton--which was way ahead of it's time but too costly and too bulky for general use--and a number of others.

The Newton, in particular, was in some ways the precursor of the iPhone but its cost alone doomed it to sales limited to people with "more money than sense." Sound familiar? Sounds like the description of the Apple Vision Pro--too costly and too bulky for widespread adoption but, I suspect, the harbinger of better (smaller, lighter) and more affordable products to come.

Give Ternus a break. I personally think he's the perfect leader for AAPL at this time--a bridge between Steve Jobs' innovative but mercurial vision and Tim Cook's methodical approach. We've been screaming for 15 years for a leader who will bring back Steve's innovative spirit (but not run the company into the ground while pursuing it, as Steve did in his first go-around). Now, when we once again get a CEO who is a product guy, we gripe that he isn't innovative enough--even before he's had a chance to show us his chops. Is there nothing that will satisfy us??? I look forward eagerly to what John Ternus (and Johny Srouji) will bring us in their tenure at the top of AAPL and can be patient if not everything is a rip-roaring success out of the gate.
 
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I think Tim Cook has been a visionary, his supportive, the southern poverty law center, and other socially just causes show him to be an enlightened spirit in the corporate world, and maybe a match for our illustrious leader mayor Mandani in New York City
 
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I7guy said:
We haven’t. Just saying.
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Oh, yeah, we have. It's nauseating how many times someone on MacRumors has said, "Steve would have done it differently." or "Cook isn't Steve when it comes to innovation." and so forth. I haven't; I've been quite happy with Cook's performance. And maybe you haven't either. But there certainly have been lots of folks on MacRumors whining that Cook needed to be the reincarnation of Steve Jobs and nothing short of that would satisfy them.
 
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mpetrides said:
Oh, yeah, we have. It's nauseating how many times someone on MacRumors has said, "Steve would have done it differently." or "Cook isn't Steve when it comes to innovation." and so forth. I haven't; I've been quite happy with Cook's performance. And maybe you haven't either. But there certainly have been lots of folks on MacRumors whining that Cook needed to be the reincarnation of Steve Jobs and nothing short of that would satisfy them.
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I’m with you 100%. Cook has had a long successful run. The few misses are minor in comparison, imo, to the successes.
 
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