Tim Cook is out as Apple's CEO. John Ternus, the company's longtime hardware chief, is in.
The transition took effect September 1st. Ternus takes over as chief executive while Johny Srouji steps into a newly created chief hardware officer role. Cook isn't gone entirely - he addressed the change on Apple's earnings call and reportedly plans to stay involved in areas like government relations, continuing a role the press has dubbed Apple's "Trump whisperer." The shift lands a week before Apple's September 9th iPhone event, the new CEO's first major public moment.
Apple hasn't put a hardware-and-product person in the top job since Steve Jobs; Cook built his reputation on operations and supply chains, not devices. Pairing a career hardware engineer as CEO with another hardware veteran running silicon suggests Apple wants ship-it instincts back at the center of the company, at a moment when AI is reportedly shaping up as Ternus's first big test in the role.
It's the biggest change at the top of Apple in more than a decade, and the timing means we won't have to wait long to see what Ternus actually does with the job.