When John Ternus takes over as Apple's chief executive on September 2026, he will become only the third person to hold the role in the company's history, following Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. For most people outside dedicated Apple circles, however, his name will be unfamiliar. Here is what is known about the man set to lead one of the world's most valuable companies.
Now 51, Ternus has worked at Apple for 25 years, having joined the company's product design team in 2001 as only his second job out of college. His first was at a small maker of virtual reality devices called Virtual Research Systems. By 2013 he was a vice president of hardware engineering, and in 2021 he was promoted to senior vice president. He is 15 years younger than Cook, and his relative youth was among the factors that made him an appealing internal candidate.
Ternus reports to Cook, whom he considers a mentor, and leads all of hardware engineering at Apple. That is a substantial remit for a company whose identity is built around physical products including the iPhone and the MacBook.
Ternus's earliest project at Apple involved scrutinising parts for the Apple Cinema Display, an early desktop monitor. In a commencement speech at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania's engineering school, he recalled spending the early hours of the morning at a supplier facility, using a magnifying glass to count the grooves on the head of a screw and arguing with the supplier over a discrepancy.
From those beginnings, his responsibilities grew to encompass some of Apple's most significant hardware milestones. He oversaw launches including AirPods, Apple Watch, and the Vision Pro headset, and played a central role in Apple's transition from Intel processors to its own proprietary Apple silicon chips.
Most recently, Ternus was involved in the production of the MacBook Neo, Apple's more affordable laptop model that uses an iPhone chip to reduce costs while maintaining what he described as Apple's standard of quality. "We never want to ship junk. We want to ship great products that have that Apple experience, that Apple quality," he said in an interview.
In his commencement speech, Ternus offered a glimpse of his outlook as a leader. "Always assume you're as smart as anyone else in the room, but never assume that you know as much as they do," he told graduates. "With this mindset, you'll find the confidence you need to push forward, but more importantly, the humility to ask questions."
He has also cited Steve Jobs's attention to craftsmanship as a guiding influence, recalling a story Jobs told about a carpenter who finished the back of a chest of drawers just as carefully as the front, even though no one would see it. "I think about that all the time because I think that perfectly exemplifies what we do here," Ternus said.
Ternus inherits a company navigating a pivotal moment. Apple has faced persistent questions about the pace of its progress in artificial intelligence relative to rivals, and the long-term direction of the Vision Pro platform remains unclear. His background in hardware engineering is widely expected to shape Apple's approach: the company has consistently anchored its AI strategy in on-device processing and tightly integrated hardware and software, rather than relying on large cloud-based infrastructure in the way that many of its competitors have.
