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I didn’t know it at the time, but the person I was interviewing was about to ascend to the highest position in all of tech. I was speaking to John Ternus, who is currently senior vice president of hardware engineering and soon-to-be Apple CEO, for an interview on Apple’s 50th anniversary and what’s next for the company. And what struck me most — just as when I interviewed Ternus about the iPhone Air — is how down to earth and even-keeled he is.
Of course, this was before Ternus was announced as the successor to Tim Cook for Sept. 1, at which point he’ll be taking over the reins for a $4 trillion business. But I don’t expect his demeanor or approach to change much as Ternus preps for this high-stakes role. During my conversation with Ternus, he was polished and quite thoughtful in his responses, and not too dissimilar from the man he’s replacing.
But there’s also that spark of excitement that you’d expect from a true hardware nerd about what Apple has built and especially what’s in the pipeline.
Article continues belowTernus, 51, has worked with Apple for over 25 years. And during that time he has overseen hardware engineering for the iPad and original AirPods, as well as for new generations of the Mac, Apple Watch and iPhone. Ternus also played a pivotal role in the transition from Intel chips to Apple Silicon and was a central figure in the development of the Vision Pro.
Here are the five quotes that stood out to me during my interview with Ternus.
'We never think about shipping technology. We always think about 'how can we leverage technology to ship amazing products'
This answer was in response to my question about Apple’s thinking around AI and Apple Intelligence. And it’s clear that Ternus is not interested in the current arms race around AI models. He’s more interested in the experiences they create with the devices are available now and what’s on the horizon.
“AI is already happening in different places, like live translation on AirPods,” Turns said. “We’re taking the technology and leveraging it into really meaningful experiences, and that's how we think about approaching it.”
'The Neo required something completely new from the ground up'
This quote surprised me somewhat because the MacBook Neo seems like a stripped down MacBook Air on the surface. But it truly is a new device. It’s the first time Apple has put an A18 chip inside a laptop, and there’s other key aspects that are not rehashed at all.
“We have a completely new trackpad design that is, I think, still better than any PC out there, but it's absolutely amazing, and it's completely brand new," Ternus said. "We had way to rethink how we made the enclosure, ow it all came together.”
'There's never been this idea of mashing these two things together'
I kind of knew what the answer was going to be, but I had to ask about the seemingly blurring lines between macOS and iPadOS, especially since iPadOS 26 takes on a lot of Mac-like features. But Ternus was not about to entertain the notion of a hybrid device or OS.
“I mean, they're different products, right?,” We never think about, ’well, what impact would it have if we did something here on a product over here?’ We're going to make the best iPad we can possibly make, we're going to make the best Mac we can possibly make.”
'We're in the early innings of spatial computing. We are super excited about it'
This quote doesn’t sound like the sentiment of someone who is one-and-done with the Vision Pro. And it was in answer to a question about what’s next for spatial computing and Apple’s stance on the burgeoning smart glasses category.
Despite the high price and current niche status, Ternus sees the Vision Pro as an “extraordinary product” and that “people are continuing to find exciting use cases for it.” He told me that “we’re at the beginning of the journey.”
'We haven't shipped it yet'
I asked Ternus about his favorite Apple product of all time … and this was his cryptic response.
What do you think Ternus' priorities should be once he takes over as CEO of Apple? Let me know in the comments.
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