They ate Cook: what is the reason for the change of the head of Apple
The change of Apple's CEO is due to the company's lag in the field of AI, in particular, the failure of Apple Intelligence, experts interviewed by Izvestia believe. They also note that users have not seen innovative gadgets for a long time — the company needs new technologies and technological breakthroughs, as it was under Steve Jobs. Current CEO Tim Cook will step down on September 1, 2026. He will be replaced by John Ternus, who is responsible for the development of hardware technologies at Apple. What problems he will have to solve and whether the new top manager is capable of achieving results - in the Izvestia article.
What is the reason for Apple's leadership change?
Apple is in dire need of new technologies and breakthrough products, as market participants and experts interviewed by Izvestia explain the company's leadership change. Late on the evening of April 20, it became known that CEO Tim Cook, who led the company for 15 years, would become executive chairman of the board of directors, and John Ternus, the chief engineer responsible for hardware development, would take over his post.
There are no complaints about Tim Cook as a manager and financial manager: under his leadership, the company demonstrated steady growth in key indicators and in 2018 became the first in the world with a capitalization of $1 trillion, said Eldar Murtazin, a leading analyst at Mobile Research Group. But in recent years, in terms of technology, Apple has been lagging behind in the technology race, if not failing, he believes. First of all, this concerns AI — here it is significantly inferior to competitors, even Chinese manufacturers.
Apple CEO Tim Cook at the annual fall presentation of the company's new products in Cupertino. September 9th, 2025
— Most likely, a person who understands new technologies and understands how to implement them was chosen as the head of the company. At the same time, Tim Cook's experience will be in demand as executive chairman of the Board of directors, in particular, in terms of building relationships with the authorities of the United States, China and other countries, the expert believes.
According to experts, Tim Cook leaves an ambiguous legacy to his successor. On the one hand, Apple has maintained its status as one of the most efficient corporations in the world by building a stable supply chain, ensuring high margins and developing an ecosystem of services, says IT expert Sergey Pomortsev. On the other hand, the company has noticeably lost its reputation as a technological visionary during this time.
Under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple has expanded sales of those products that entered the market under his predecessor Steve Jobs, primarily the iPhone and iPad lines. In 2025, the company took the first place in the world in terms of smartphone sales. At the same time, a new product was launched on the market — the Apple Watch smartwatch. Apple's investment policy, including a large—scale buyback of its own shares, has contributed to a significant increase in capitalization: over the past eight years, it has almost quadrupled to $3.98 trillion.
"In recent years, the company has been optimizing existing products rather than creating new categories," the source said. — Among the key challenges today are the slowing growth of the iPhone, high dependence on a single product, increased regulatory pressure and a noticeable lag in the field of generative AI.
At the same time, according to the expert, the corporation has all the resources left to return to its leading position: a strong brand, a loyal audience and a deeply integrated ecosystem. However, without breakthrough solutions or a convincing AI strategy, such a "renaissance" may turn out to be only cosmetic. Restoring a sense of technological leadership will be much more difficult than maintaining current profitability.
The appointment of John Ternus looks logical from the point of view of the company's engineering culture, but at the same time raises questions, says Ivan Kalmykov, information technology specialist at the Department of Esports at the Faculty of Gaming Industry and Esports at Synergy University.
Apple Chief Engineer John Ternus
— He is a strong hardware specialist, but the current crisis is more strategic than engineering in nature. What is needed now is not just an improvement in hardware, but a rethinking of the product line and position in new technological niches, primarily in the field of AI. There are doubts that a person with a predominantly technical background will be able to quickly solve a complex of problems of this magnitude, especially in conditions when the company has already begun to lose pace and is forced to catch up with competitors," he said.
What do users and investors expect from Apple?
According to Counterpoint Research, in 2025, for the first time in 14 years, Apple overtook Samsung in the global smartphone market: the company accounted for 20% of devices sold against 19% from the South Korean manufacturer. According to the results of the 2025 financial year, revenue amounted to $416.2 billion against $391 billion in 2024, and net profit reached $112 billion (against $93.7 billion), the report says.
According to "M.Video", among the iPhones released during Tim Cook's leadership, the iPhone 5s, iPhone 7 and iPhone 11 were in the highest demand in Russia in physical terms — these models formed the bulk of sales in different years.
"The leader in the number of devices sold was the iPhone 5s 16 GB, sold in a circulation of more than 260 thousand units. The top also includes the iPhone 7 32 GB and iPhone 11 128 GB, which consolidated the trend towards mass demand in the middle price segment," the retailer's materials say.
Over the past five to seven years, the company has been accused of the fact that each new iPhone model differs only in the number in the name and some absolutely cosmetic details - the manufacturer has long ceased to be a locomotive of innovation, said Leonid Konik, partner at ComNews Reseacrh.
— Obviously, the shareholders expect restructuring in this direction. Therefore, the financial manager gives way to the "technician" — the person responsible for the devices. Probably, the corporation will rush in an attempt to hit the new iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and possibly some other devices again. At the same time, the company has not introduced truly revolutionary products to the market for about ten years," he added.
Before joining Apple, John Ternus worked at Virtual Research Systems, where he was engaged in the development of VR headsets back in the period when the industry was at an early stage of development, recalled gaming industry expert Igor Baranov. This is not a story about the company's large-scale business success, but rather about the formation of engineering thinking: working with new interfaces, device ergonomics and hardware limitations in an environment where the market has not yet been formed, he noted.
— This experience, in fact, anticipates his further role as a person who knows how to bring complex hardware products to a mature state. And in the context of the company's current strategy, including mixed reality devices and experiments with new form factors, this early background looks more like a long-term advantage, the expert believes.
In the laptop segment, according to Anton Fomin, head of retail projects at Marvel Distribution, there is a need to reconsider the concept of non-upgrade devices with "average" characteristics. Such a model, he believes, is starting to lose even to basic gaming laptops.
Initially, Mac was focused on a limited set of scenarios — working with documents, content consumption, and basic editing, but the nature of user tasks has changed, the expert notes. According to him, the workload on graphics has increased significantly today: full-fledged video editing, 3D work and games are becoming everyday scenarios that these devices are coping with worse than before.
As for smartphones, no new audience is coming to the iPhone, and the development of AI alone cannot change the situation, since competitors are moving in the same direction, Anton Fomin added.
— The iPhone Air, as a test before the release of the folding format, did not prove very convincing in terms of sales. The folding phone will make a lot of noise, but if the price is at the level of the Vision Pro, it risks remaining a niche product for enthusiasts and bloggers, he warned.
Tim Cook was good at implementing the ideas that arose under Steve Jobs, but, as practice has shown, these foundations do not last forever, said Sergey Vilyanov, an analyst at Fintech Lab. Over the past five years, it has not been possible to launch, in fact, a single fundamentally new project: neither an Apple car nor a TV appeared, an augmented reality headset did not take off, not to mention artificial intelligence, he listed.
At the same time, according to him, signs of a reversal began to appear even before Cook left the post of CEO. He cites the MacBook Neo as an example: if earlier the strategy was based on the consistent complication of devices, then this model, on the contrary, demonstrates a simpler and more maintainable approach, which has already been noted by industry experts.
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