Is Apple's Glory Days Over With Tim Cook Stepping Down?

Tim Cook winds up 15 years as Apple CEO tomorrow, succeeded by John Ternus, which is probably the most significant event of the week in tech. While CEOs of small to midsize tech companies come and go fairly often—PayPal has had three in the past five years, for instance—we don’t get a CEO changeover at the half-dozen biggest tech companies very often. The last CEO transition at one of those big companies was Andy Jassy, who took the reins at Amazon in 2021 (yes, five years ago!). You have to go back to 2015 for the one before that, when Sundar Pichai took over at Google, and a year before that, when Satya Nadella became Microsoft CEO. It may be a few years before we get another one. With Cook’s exit, the oldest big tech CEO is Jensen Huang, who is reportedly 63, while his counterparts at other companies aren’t yet 60. It’s hard to imagine Huang stepping down anytime soon: He seems to have the energy of a 25-year-old. As for Ternus, what should we expect? This isn’t a case, as frequently happens with CEO changeovers, of anything needing to be “fixed” at Apple. The iPhone maker has done very well under Cook—revenue has expanded to an expected $477.7 billion for the year to September from $108 billion in fiscal 2011 when he took over. In the near term, the expected AI overhaul of Siri and the release of the new foldable iPhone should give sales something of a tailwind. In the medium term, though, Apple still faces the lack of a major new product, the same issue that has clouded its future for a while. After all, the iPhone market is mature. Meanwhile, Apple faces potential competition from OpenAI, which plans to release new devices tailored for the AI world sometime in the next year. Ternus has time to make his mark, but not that much time. Cook, by the way, is not departing Apple completely. He becomes executive chair, while John Ternus succeeds him as CEO. Apple described Cook’s new role as “engaging with policymakers around the world,” which is an important job given the geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China. Will his presence constrain Ternus from pursuing his own agenda?

After 15 years leading Apple, Tim Cook is stepping down as chief executive on Monday. And while he is committed to a smooth transition and continuity to the tenure of John Ternus—senior vice president of hardware engineering, who takes over on Tuesday—changes are already happening. Notably, long-time Apple executive Phil Schiller is stepping down as head of App Store and product events, Bloomberg reported. The App Store team will be moved under services lead Eddy Cue, while events will be switched to public relations lead Kristin Huguet Quayle. Schiller, who previously was senior vice president of marketing until 2020, was part of the Apple old guard with deep connections to cofounder Steve Jobs when he came back to the company to successfully lead the company as CEO. (Schiller was once nicknamed “mini-Steve” as he mirrored Jobs’ fierce management style.) Schiller was often more influential than his titles would suggest, as he would weigh in on various parts of the business and product strategy. Bloomberg reported that Schiller would stay involved in the company and keep his title of “Apple Fellow” but was part of ultimately retiring. In his own goodbye memo to employees, Cook wrote: “This is a moment I always knew would come one day, and yet it is still hard to believe it has arrived and I am writing these words.” Cook will stay on as executive chairman and is expected to be deeply involved in parts of the company. “I look forward to seeing you in my new role at Apple Park and around the world,” he wrote bloomberg.com/news/articl..

Apple unveiled a much anticipated foldable iPhone at its first product launch featuring brand-new Chief Executive John Ternus. #Gadgets The iPhone Duo is Apple’s first foldable smartphone—a product category that competitors have been selling for years, but has remained mostly a smaller, niche part of the broader market. While folded, the Duo is around the size of a passport and can fit easily in one hand, with an exterior screen. It unfolds to a length of a 7.6-inch display, closer to the size of an iPad. A video showed how users could use two apps at once while unfolded—texting in iMessage while watching a video, for example. Developers could adapt their apps to fit the new format, such as Netflix letting users browse videos clips on the outer display while closed and then opening up the Duo for the full-video experience. The Duo starts at $1,999 for a version with 256 gigabytes of storage and climbs to a whopping $3,199 for one with  2 terabytes. Apple also unveiled the iPhone 18 Pro, starting at $1,199, and 18 Pro Max, starting at $1,299. That’s $100 more than the prior generation’s Pro models, a price hike the company forecasted publicly a few few months ago that it would need to compensate for surging costs for memory and storage chips. At the beginning of the pre-recorded video, Ternus repeatedly talked about the “intelligent personal hub,” a new term Apple is invoking to describe how AI is used to understand users’ personal context. “There’s no product in the world better designed to be your intelligent personal hub than iPhone,” Ternus said, touting Apple’s on-device AI and privacy features. He also added: “Others see that data as something to collect and store. They move it to their servers and ask you to trust them. But honestly, trust only goes so far when your data is no longer yours to control. ” Apple has long emphasized its privacy practices but it is especially focused these days on OpenAI, which aims to launch a family of new AI devices, starting with a portable speaker and later phone sometime in the future. Apple sued OpenAI in July, alleging theft of trade secrets alongside its aggressive poaching of Apple employees with backgrounds in hardware engineering and operations. OpenAI has denied the claims. apple.com/newsroom/2026/0..

Apple plans to launch a smart home hub device on October 13th, Bloomberg reported. The hub has a roughly 6-inch square display that can sit on countertops or be mounted on walls, the news outlet reported. The device will showcase the capabilities of Apple’s overhauled Siri, which was recently released after a delay of two years, and be able to recognize people who interact with it. The screen will display the identified user’s personal information, such as messages and upcoming calendar appointments. With the new product, Apple is moving into a crowded market. Google and Amazon launched their own smart home displays years ago. Apple has dipped its toe into the smart home over the years, with features like HomeKit to let devices hook into Apple’s software, but has limited success compared to rivals. As part of this push, Apple is also releasing an updated HomePod mini and a new Apple TV. #Gadgets bloomberg.com/news/articl..