Techin' Geek

After a tenure of 15 years, Tim Cook will transition the Apple CEO position to John Ternus, who serves as the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. Beginning September 1, Ternus will oversee one of the globe’s most invaluable firms, though if you aren’t a devoted Apple follower, you may not be familiar with this individual, who has primarily stayed out of the limelight until now.

What is John Ternus’s duration of employment at Apple?

Ternus has been with Apple for almost half of his life—now aged 51, he has clocked in 25 years at the company.

He became part of Apple’s product design team in 2001, marking it as his second role post-college (the first being at a small manufacturer of virtual-reality equipment known as Virtual Research Systems). By 2013, Ternus had risen to the rank of VP of hardware engineering and was elevated to the SVP position in 2021.

Ternus—who is 15 years Tim Cook’s junior—was one of the youngest top Apple executives speculated to be a potential successor, suggesting that Apple is aiming to find someone to guide the company over a prolonged period. After all, this millennium has seen only two individuals at the helm of Apple, indicating that the continuity of leadership is valued by the organization.

Ternus reports directly to Cook, regarding him as a mentor, and supervises all hardware engineering initiatives at Apple. This is significant for a company renowned for its widespread hardware like the iPhone and the MacBook.

During his 2024 commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania’s engineering school, Ternus shared insights from his experiences at Apple, which may reflect facets of his character—or at least a polished representation of it.

“Always presume you’re as intelligent as anyone else in the room, but never think you know as much as they do,” Ternus articulated during the address. “With this outlook, you’ll acquire the confidence necessary to advance, but more importantly, the humility to inquire.”

In a technology landscape filled with prominent personalities, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear Ternus express the idea of “humility.” Even more noteworthy, he doesn’t seem to possess an X account.

Which projects did John Ternus spearhead at Apple?

Ternus’s initial project at Apple focused on examining components for the Apple Cinema Display, an early model of desktop monitor.

“During my first year, I found myself at a supplier’s facility. I was far from home. Late into the night, I was using a magnifying glass to count the number of grooves on the head of a screw… and I was disputing with the supplier because those parts had 35 grooves. They were meant to have 25,” Ternus recounted in his commencement address. “I clearly remember stepping back for a moment and pondering, ‘What am I doing? Is this standard?’”

As Ternus ascended the corporate ranks, his roles expanded. Though he may not dedicate as much time to inspecting screws, he still seems proud of ensuring the minute details are accurate. In a recent discussion, when Ternus was queried about his most cherished memory of Steve Jobs, he highlighted the co-founder’s focus on craftsmanship.

“[Jobs] was relocating a piece of furniture, a dresser, and pulled it from the wall and observed the back, reflecting on how the carpenter who crafted it ensured it was aesthetically pleasing,” Ternus stated. “It was as finely finished at the back as it was on the front, despite no one intended to see it, right? And I think about that constantly since it perfectly represents what we strive for here.”

Subsequently, he led the hardware development of products within the Apple ecosystem, overseeing the introduction of items such as AirPods, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. He also contributed to significant technical advancements at Apple, including the transition from Intel processors to Apple’s proprietary silicon.

Most recently, Ternus was engaged in the creation of the MacBook Neo, Apple’s latest lower-cost laptop model that reduces expenses through innovative adjustments in hardware design, such as utilizing an iPhone chip as its power source.

“We never aim to deliver subpar products. We aspire to launch exceptional products that embody the Apple experience and quality. Achieving that with the Neo necessitated constructing something entirely novel from the ground up… leveraging the technologies we’ve been developing, like Apple silicon, along with the expertise we’ve cultivated over many years of manufacturing Macs, phones, and iPads, and all these things,” Ternus explained to Tom’s Guide.

As CEO, Ternus will need to navigate Apple through the task of keeping pace in the AI competition and determining the future use of the underlying technology behind Vision Pro.

What additional information do we have about John Ternus?

Ternus participated in the swim team at Penn. For his senior project, he designed a feeding arm that individuals with quadriplegia could operate using head movements.

As per public records of political contributions, Ternus contributed $2,900 to Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in 2021.

Otherwise, Ternus has kept a relatively discreet public profile.

On Monday, Anthropic revealed that Amazon has consented to invest an additional $5 billion, raising Amazon’s total investment in the firm to $13 billion. In return, Anthropic has committed to spending upwards of $100 billion on AWS over the next decade, receiving up to 5 GW of new computing power to train and operate Claude.

This agreement mirrors one that Amazon made with OpenAI just two months prior, where it participated in a $110 billion funding round—providing $50 billion—that valued the creator of ChatGPT at a $730 billion pre-money valuation. That arrangement was also partly structured as cloud infrastructure services rather than purely cash.

Central to this agreement are Amazon’s proprietary chips: Graviton (a low-energy CPU) and Trainium (a competitor to Nvidia and an AI accelerator chip). The deal with Anthropic specifically encompasses Trainium2 through Trainium4 chips, although Trainium4 chips are not yet on the market. The latest release, Trainium3, debuted in December. Additionally, Anthropic has obtained the right to purchase capacity on future Amazon chips as they are released.

It remains to be seen if this announcement hints at Anthropic revealing a new funding round. Venture capitalists are reportedly approaching the AI firm with offers that would value it at $800 billion or more.

On Monday, Google unveiled that it’s expanding its Gemini feature in Chrome to seven additional markets, which include Australia, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam. This feature is being released for both desktop and iOS in all these regions except for Japan.

Since last year, the company has been incorporating AI and Gemini into Chrome in various ways, utilizing a floating window.

Earlier this year, they unveiled a sidebar assistant aimed at aiding users in answering queries across different tabs and leveraging the Personal Intelligence capability of Gemini, allowing connections to services such as Gmail and Google Photos for tailored responses. Through this Chrome feature, users can also arrange meetings using Calendar, verify location specifics with Maps, and create and send emails through Gmail.

Additionally, users can alter images online with Nano Banana 2 in the sidebar.

Initially, Gemini in Chrome was accessible to users in the U.S. following its launch in January, and in March, the availability was extended to India, Canada, and New Zealand.

With this rollout, Gemini in Chrome is now offered in a broader range of countries. Nevertheless, the company’s agentic feature, which manages your browser window to perform tasks on your behalf, is currently under testing and is only accessible to AI Pro and AI Ultra paid plan users in the U.S.

On Monday afternoon, Apple announced that Tim Cook will resign as CEO, a position he has occupied since 2011, when he took over from the late Steve Jobs. Starting September 1 this year, Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus will assume the top executive role.

Cook will continue with the company as executive chairman, and Ternus will become a member of Apple’s board of directors. Arthur Levinson, who has been Apple’s non-executive chairman for the last 15 years, will take on the role of lead independent director, also effective September 1.

This shift has been anticipated for some time and concludes one of the longest and most significant tenures a CEO has had at any firm. Cook took charge during a period of considerable uncertainty — Jobs passed away from pancreatic cancer just six weeks after formally transferring the role — and inherited a company that numerous industry observers and fans found challenging to distinguish from its legendary founder. What he departs with is a $4 trillion enterprise, boasting annual revenues that have increased more than fourfold during his leadership.

“Being the CEO of Apple has been the greatest honor of my life,” Cook expressed in a statement on Monday. “I cherish Apple deeply, and I am profoundly thankful to have collaborated with a team of such brilliant, innovative, creative, and caring individuals who have consistently demonstrated dedication to enhancing the lives of our customers.”

When Cook arrived in Cupertino in 1998, he was not brought on as a visionary. Instead, Jobs, who had recently returned to Apple after a lengthy absence, required someone to rectify a supply chain that was, by most evaluations, a mess. Cook, originally from Mobile, Alabama, who worked for 12 years at IBM before joining Intelligent Electronics and Compaq, accomplished what was necessary and more. He rapidly closed warehouses and consolidated suppliers and has been widely recognized for transforming Apple’s manufacturing processes into a competitive strength over time instead of a drawback.

His elevation to CEO was never guaranteed.

For years, it was thought in and around Silicon Valley that no one could succeed Jobs. It was difficult to envision someone more unlike the charismatic product innovator than Cook, a methodical expert in supply chain and operations. However, when Jobs’ health necessitated him to withdraw multiple times — in 2004, 2009, and again in 2011 — Cook managed the company sufficiently well that when Jobs formally bequeathed him the title, he was the clear choice.

There were, of course, notable missteps afterwards. Among the most prominent was Apple Vision Pro, the mixed-reality headset that Cook promoted as the company’s next significant platform and that was mainly disregarded by consumers unwilling to invest several thousand dollars to wear a computer that weighs over a pound on their face.

Nonetheless, his term has been tremendously successful by various other standards. As the company highlighted in its own announcement on Monday regarding the executive transition, Cook transformed Apple Services into a business surpassing $100 billion yearly. Apple also attributes the thriving wearables division to him. (Last year, the Apple Watch represented an estimated 25% of global smartwatch sales.)

Levinson, representing the board, praised Cook’s leadership as “unparalleled and exceptional,” stating that Cook’s “integrity and values are embedded in everything Apple undertakes.” Levinson remarked that the board is “excited” Cook will remain as executive chairman.

Ternus, who at 51 is approximately the same age Cook was upon becoming CEO, has dedicated nearly his entire career to Apple. A native of California, he pursued mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, participated on the varsity swim team, and graduated in 1997. After a short period designing virtual-reality headsets at a small company called Virtual Research Systems, he joined Apple’s product design team in 2001. By 2013, he held the title of vice president of hardware engineering. In 2021, when his predecessor Dan Riccio stepped aside to manage what would ultimately become the (ill-fated) Vision Pro, Ternus was elevated to senior vice president, making him the youngest member of Apple’s executive team.

Unsurprisingly, Ternus has had a hand in much of what Apple has launched over the past decade. According to Apple, he played a crucial role in the debut of iPad and AirPods and has supervised numerous iterations of the iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch. His team’s contributions became increasingly visible this past fall with the unveiling of a new iPhone lineup that included the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, the iPhone Air, and the iPhone 17 itself.

On the Mac front, Ternus has contributed to strengthening the category, including through the recent introduction of the more economical MacBook Neo. His team also played a role (according to Apple) in advancing AirPods to the point where they now serve not just as headphones but also as an over-the-counter hearing health system.

Beyond the products, Ternus has focused heavily on durability and repairability. Apple credits him for introducing new materials and manufacturing practices that have lowered the carbon footprint of Apple’s products, including a new recycled aluminum compound employed across various product lines, while also extending the longevity of several Apple devices through improvements in their reparability.

In his own statement on Monday, Ternus remarked: “Having spent nearly my entire career at Apple, I have been fortunate to work under Steve Jobs and have Tim Cook as my mentor,” he stated. “I am honored to take on this role, and I pledge to lead with the principles and vision that have defined this extraordinary organization for half a century.”

Cook expressed of Ternus: “John Ternus possesses the mind of an engineer, the spirit of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and honor,” he stated. “He is undoubtedly the right individual to guide Apple into the future.”

Google Photos is introducing new touch-up features aimed at enabling users to make subtle adjustments and corrections, as announced by Google on Monday. The latest tools let you eliminate imperfections, enhance skin texture, lighten eyes, brighten teeth, and much more.

To utilize the touch-up features, select a face in an image and then pick the tool you’d like to use: heal, smooth, under eyes, irises, teeth, eyebrows, or lips. After selecting a tool, you can modify the effect’s intensity.

The touch-up features are being gradually released worldwide in the Google Photos application on Android devices with a minimum of 4 GB RAM and running Android 9.0 or higher.

With the launch of its own touch-up features, Google likely aims to encourage users to perform photo edits within Google Photos rather than switching to third-party applications.

It’s important to consider that research has indicated that frequent photo retouching might be detrimental, potentially resulting in negative feelings, decreased self-esteem, or body image concerns.

At times, phenomena are not merely one aspect — they additionally represent another aspect. This structure of sentence (“It’s not only this — it’s that”) has become so prevalent in AI-created text that it is no longer just an indication that a writing piece might be artificial — it’s nearly a certainty.

That’s the reason I was not just curious when I came across a Barron’s report regarding how this sentence structure has surged in corporate communications — I was thoroughly entertained. The report didn’t merely comment on the abundance of this wording in corporate communications — it explored the market intelligence firm AlphaSense’s database to assess how frequently this phrasing appeared in corporate press releases, earnings statements, and government documents.

According to Barron’s, this sentence structure is not just a peculiarity of corporate communications — it’s a phenomenon, more than quadrupling from approximately 50 instances in 2023 to over 200 occurrences in 2025.

It’s not merely the data indicating this — I also uncovered some instances from the previous year:

• “In 2025, AI won’t only be a tool; it will be a partner.” (Cisco)
• “The future of autonomy isn’t solely on the horizon; it’s already beginning.” (Accenture)
• “DevOps teams are overseeing not merely deployments, but also security compliance and cloud expenditures.” (Workday)
• “These systems aren’t solely executing tasks; they’re starting to learn, adapt, and collaborate.” (McKinsey)
• “When Bill established Microsoft, he imagined not just a software company, but a software production facility, unrestrained by any single product or category.” (Satya Nadella in a Microsoft blog post.)
• “It’s not merely about creating tools for specific roles or tasks. It’s about designing tools that empower everyone to craft their own tools.” (The same Microsoft blog post.)
• “Just envision if all 8 billion individuals could call upon a researcher … not only to acquire information but use their expertise to accomplish tasks that benefit them.” (Still, that same Microsoft blog post.)

It’s not merely coincidental that generative AI instruments frequently deploy this phrase — it mirrors our writing that these tools were built upon (without our consent, I might add, which is not only disrespectful to writers — it’s a breach). And it’s not solely this sentence structure — it’s also em-dashes that have now been identified as indicators for AI-generated text.

This isn’t merely an amusing trend — it symbolizes how dependent these companies have become on AI (though we cannot assert with certainty if the aforementioned messages were AI-assisted). So the next time you encounter such a sentence, remember that it’s not only a catchy structure — it may be a sign of something more significant.

“The occurrence of AI content is rapidly escalating and ‘it’s not just X, it’s Y’ is a quirk favored by 2025’s next-generation language models,” Max Spero, CEO of AI detection tool Pangram, conveyed to TechCrunch. “The baseline frequency of this sentence structure is substantial enough that its presence is no definitive evidence of AI usage, but it’s evident that press releases and corporate documents, writing influenced by standards and not emotion, are witnessing an even greater frequency of AI utilization.”

Updated, 4/20/26, 6:00 PM EST, with quote from Pangram.