John Ternus joined Apple in 2001 and steadily rose through the company’s product development ranks, building a reputation as a detail-oriented engineer and calm operator before becoming one of Apple’s most visible hardware leaders.
He worked on and later led teams responsible for major products across the lineup, including the iPhone, iPad, Mac and AirPods, and became known to the public through polished keynote presentations during Apple events.
In 2021, he was named Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, putting him in charge of nearly all of Apple’s core device engineering at a time when the company was transitioning Macs to Apple silicon and expanding its hardware ambitions.
Over the years, his role has grown beyond pure engineering execution, reflecting Apple’s trust in his ability to oversee complex, cross-functional product efforts. Most recently, reports indicate Apple expanded his responsibilities to include oversight of design, further elevating his influence inside the company and positioning him as one of the most prominent leaders in Apple’s current and future leadership structure.
John Ternus, Apple’s head of hardware engineering, reportedly just added an even more critical role at the company, being put in charge of design for the first time.
The intent of the change might be to give Ternus the experience needed to someday become Apple CEO.
November 17, 2020: Apple releases the first three Macs powered by the company’s new M1 chip. The Apple silicon processor sparks a renaissance at Apple, with the excellent new computers surprising nearly everyone with their bold mix of power and efficiency.
The switch to Apple silicon could not have come soon enough for Apple. The era of Intel-powered Macs began promisingly enough, but went out with a long whimper. The stark contrast in Apple’s commitment to the platform, and the unbelievable value the new Mac models offered, made the Apple silicon era a golden age for the Mac.
Apple is preparing for a major internal reorganization ahead of COO Jeff Williams’ retirement later this year. As part of the rejig, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, will oversee the health and fitness team.
Meanwhile, leadership of the watchOS division will move to Craig Federighi, Apple’s head of software engineering.
With the surprise retirement of Apple COO Jeff Williams on Tuesday, all bets are off concerning the next CEO of Apple.
Williams, a 27-year Apple veteran, was widely regarded as the likely next CEO of Apple when Tim Cook eventually steps down.
But with Williams out of the running, Apple senior vice presidents John Ternus or Craig Federighi are now seen as the most probable candidates for the top spot.
But I think it could be someone else entirely — and it’s a pick I haven’t seen anyone else make.
Here’s who I think might be the next CEO of Apple, and why.
In another significant leadership reshuffle at Apple, a little-known robotics team will soon move from AI chief John Giannandrea’s oversight to John Ternus, Apple’s senior VP of Hardware Engineering, according to a new report Thursday.
This shift follows last month’s decision to remove Siri from Giannandrea’s responsibilities after concerns about execution on product development.
Popular tech influencer Marques Brownlee shared a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) Wednesday from his visit to Apple labs that do durability testing like iPhone water testing. You’ve probably never seen iPhones this wet. And you’ve probably never subjected yours to such punishment.
Along the way, he fit in an interesting video chat with Apple hardware honcho John Ternus about product reliability versus repairability, below.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: With the many AI-powered features reportedly coming in iOS 18, a Siri revamp sounds possible — and promising! We talk about OpenAI’s startlingly good GPT-4o demos and wonder if Siri will ever amaze us like that.
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, reportedly sits at the top of the list to step into Tim Cook’s shoes when the current Apple CEO steps down.
But the real question is, does Ternus have what it takes to fill a role that Steve Jobs once did so brilliantly?
The M1 Mac processor in the recently-revealed 2021 iPad Pro forced Apple to reiterate that it’s not planning to combine macOS and iPadOS. According to two top-level executives, the company is producing the best Mac and the best iPad it can make. Not a mashup of them.
Dan Riccio, one of Apple’s top designers, is moving to a mysterious new role in Cupertino.
After joining Apple in 1998, Riccio worked on loads of groundbreaking products, from the first iMac to last year’s AirPods Max and the M1-powered Macs. Now, he’s become Apple’s “vice president of engineering.”
Going forward, Riccio says he will be “focusing all my time and energy at Apple on creating something new and wonderful that I couldn’t be more excited about,” according to a press release Monday.