John Ternus is putting his stamp on Apple by focusing on the company's design work, with the CEO taking an almost Jobsian approach to make design great again.
The era of Tim Cook as Apple CEO was one of growth, with sales and manufacturing the core of his tenure at the top. Under the rule of Ternus, design is becoming a top priority once more for the company, as Ternus aims to add more to the company by strengthening its weaker areas.
Writing in Sunday's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman writes about a conversation between Ternus and Cook, and how Ternus needed to be himself as CEO instead of emulating Cook. To Ternus, it was an apparent turning point.
Cook had spent his tenure as CEO working on where he could generate "the most value for Apple," Ternus told employees. Therefore, Ternus believed he had to do the same, while still being himself.
The result is that areas Cook focused on, such as financial strategy and the supply chain, are being handled by CFO Kevan Parekh and COO Sabih Khan. Ternus, who is very much an engineer, is instead working closely with chief hardware officer Johny Srouji and hardware engineering leader Tom Marieb.
At the same time, he's also taking a lot more time to look at design, which has fallen behind since the departure of Jony Ive in 2019. There were leaders working for the industrial design and human interface design groups, but they were separate rather than a single executive covering both areas.
Those leaders also reported to former COO Jeff Williams, who had a background in manufacturing but not design. When Williams retired in 2025, those teams were said to be reporting directly to Cook instead.
That wasn't for long, as Cook handed the responsibility for design to Ternus ahead of the CEO transition. During the transition itself, the design chiefs were effectively the only direct reports Ternus had before taking the top spot at the company.
A Jobsian change
Ternus has previous experience working with the design studio, in his role as head of hardware engineering. After becoming CEO, he has become even closer to the design teams, and has reportedly worked hands-on in the studio numerous times a week.
This is a stark contrast to Cook, who very much focused on the other areas of the company that he knew best. Cook only visited the studio for about an hour once a month, the report said.
Cook's arms-reach approach to design was also a big departure from his predecessor, Steve Jobs. Jobs was famous for being deeply involved with design, which Ternus seems to be emulating.
Raising the profile of design at Apple is a tough task, especially following the departure of Ive. Part of this is actually from Ive's design studio, LoveFrom, taking some of the design team out of the company.
Apple's design leads Steve Lemay (left) and Molly Anderson, during the iPhone Duo launch - image credit: Apple.
There have also been losses to OpenAI's hardware team and other tech firms, thinning the studio's ranks. Then there's the departures of software design leader Alan Dye and industrial design chief Evans Hankey exiting to OpenAI.
The current VP of Industrial Design, Molly Anderson, didn't have a high profile, and also hadn't managed a team as large as Apple's before taking the role. But even so, Gurman says that there's no search happening for an external chief design officer.
Instead, there has been an effort by Apple to shore up what it already has and to rebuild. That has included bringing Anderson and Dye successor Steve Lemay to the fore with the launch of the iPhone Duo, as well as hiring more designers for its team.
Apple may not be searching for someone to take control over the design teams right now. Considering the amount of attention for design he has at the moment, Ternus may believe he can do it himself.
