{"id":1691365,"date":"2026-09-08T13:48:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T17:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/observer.com\/?p=1691365"},"modified":"2026-09-08T13:48:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T17:48:21","slug":"apple-ceo-john-ternus-needs-to-make-apple-exciting-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2026\/09\/apple-ceo-john-ternus-needs-to-make-apple-exciting-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple’s New CEO Has One Job: Make Apple Surprising Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"John
John Ternus and Tim Cook at the 2026 Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley. Cook delivered 15 years of operational excellence; as his successor, Ternus will need to deliver something else. Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The smartest thing Tim Cook did when he replaced Steve Jobs as Apple\u2019s CEO was: He didn\u2019t try to be Steve Jobs. The smartest thing John Ternus, who makes his public debut as Apple\u2019s new CEO<\/a> tomorrow (Wednesday), can do is not try to be Tim Cook.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jobs, of course, was the company\u2019s prodigal founder who returned to rescue it and turned it into a global cultural force. He was simply irreplaceable<\/a>, so Cook didn\u2019t even try. In place of Jobs\u2019s charismatic and visionary leadership, he leaned into his own strengths, delivering 15 years of operational excellence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Operational excellence, it turned out, was exactly what Apple needed at that moment, and Cook succeeded brilliantly at it. In the 15 years of his reign, Apple went from a market capitalization of less than $350 billion to its current value of more than $4.5 trillion. Cook didn\u2019t succeed <\/span>despite<\/span><\/i> not being Jobs; he succeeded <\/span>because<\/span><\/i> he wasn\u2019t Jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

But just as Apple in 2011 needed a different kind of leadership from Jobs\u2019s, it now needs something more than Cook\u2019s managerial prowess if its next 15 years are to even remotely resemble its last 15. Specifically, Ternus will need to figure out how to re-inject excitement into the equation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Once upon a time, Apple product launches were events. Why? Because they were built on surprise\u2014introducing consumers to products most couldn\u2019t even imagine until they saw them. The Macintosh in 1984. The candy-colored iMac in 1998. The iPod in 2001. The iPhone in 2007.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, of course, everything was introduced with Jobs\u2019s flair for theatricality. The Mac\u2019s \u201c1984\u201d <\/span>Super Bowl commercial<\/span><\/a> is still talked about after more than four decades. Jobs\u2019s iPhone introduction\u2014\u201can iPod, a phone and an internet communicator. An iPod, a phone \u2026 are you getting it?\u201d\u2014makes for <\/span>entertaining viewing<\/span><\/a> even today. A year later, his audience gasped when he produced the first, impossibly thin MacBook Air on stage by sliding it out of a manila envelope.<\/span><\/p>\n

Compare those moments with the modern Apple launch event. No more bright lights, dramatic flourishes or, since the pandemic, live audiences.<\/span> Instead, we get a slickly produced video that\u2019s about as dramatic as a CNBC report.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the products, Cook is leaving his successor a full pipeline of \u2018em, and they are certainly better than ever\u2014that\u2019s the nature of technology, after all. But the improvements are increasingly incremental. This year\u2019s iPhone will look a lot like last year\u2019s, and next year\u2019s. A better camera, new colors, a brighter screen and faster chips are nice\u2014but not life-altering.<\/span><\/p>\n

And even when Apple does something new these days, it\u2019s often \u2026 not really. This week, if reports are correct, its marquee announcement will be a new foldable iPhone called the Ultra. It may well be a big hit\u2014but its impact will stem not from the technology, which Android users have had for the better part of a decade, but from the fact that Apple is finally embracing it. Just how excited will we be supposed to get when a Mac finally comes with a touchscreen?<\/span><\/p>\n

All of which makes the 51-year-old Ternus a particularly intriguing selection as CEO. Jobs had been a celebrity for nearly two decades when he returned to save Apple in the late \u201890s; his first national magazine cover was in 1981. And Cook had years of public exposure as Jobs\u2019s ops wizard and increasingly obvious heir apparent before taking over in 2011; Jobs died six weeks later. By contrast, Ternus\u2014while well-known and seemingly popular within Apple\u2014has little public profile: David Pogue\u2019s <\/span>exhaustive account<\/span><\/a> of the company\u2019s first half-century, published earlier this year, mentions him exactly once.<\/span><\/p>\n

But his background at the company at least hints at the possibility he could put some excitement back into the pipeline. He played key roles in the development of the first iPad, the last major new device of the Jobs era, as well as the now-ubiquitous AirPods, which together with the Apple Watch were the two most successful new hardware products introduced during Cook\u2019s reign.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the AirPods and watch showed that Cook could introduce successful new devices, they aren\u2019t really central to the story of his achievement. Far more important has been the spectacular growth of Apple\u2019s services business, from iCloud and the App Store to Apple Pay and <\/span>Ted Lasso<\/span><\/i>, into a $100-billion-a-year behemoth. But if more seasons of Shrinking<\/em> becomes a highlight of Ternus\u2019s tenure, both he and Apple will have lost the thread. Exciting hardware remains the soul of the company, and the foundation of everything else it does.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say Ternus needs to reintroduce Jobs-style showmanship; he needn\u2019t worry about building a wardrobe full of black turtlenecks. What he should focus on is building products worthy of showmanship\u2014something worth sliding out of an envelope.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s impossible at this stage of the game. Maybe the personal-tech market has become so predictable because it\u2019s now a mature industry, like appliances and autos. After all, it isn\u2019t just Apple: Samsung, Google, the Chinese\u2014everyone makes remarkably good devices that mostly get better at the margins. So if Ternus can make Apple surprising again, he won\u2019t just be solving a problem for Apple, he\u2019ll be solving one for the entire industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not long before he died, Jobs gave Cook a sterling piece of advice: \u201cNever ask what I would do.\u201d Cook, who understood that following Jobs didn\u2019t mean imitating him, has essentially given Ternus the same gift<\/a>. Now Ternus needs to figure out what Apple needs from him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Cook succeeded precisely because he wasn’t Steve Jobs. Now John Ternus has to figure out what only he can give Apple\u2014and it probably isn’t another season of ‘Shrinking.’<\/p>\n Read More<\/a>","protected":false},"author":177935303,"featured_media":1691383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_issue-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","_ef_editorial_meta__first-draft-date":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"post_tag":[106595,423982741,423986711],"company":[423800616],"channel":[186,423868938,423875666,423950061],"location":[],"nyo_column":[423982261],"person":[423882012,423882151,423988663,423825809],"nyo_post_hidden":[],"coauthors":[384534039],"class_list":{"0":"post-1691365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"tag-iphone","8":"tag-media-experts","9":"tag-tech-experts","10":"observer_company-apple","11":"channel-business","12":"channel-media","13":"channel-technology","14":"channel-big-tech","15":"nyo_column-expert-insights","16":"nyo_person-tim-cook","17":"nyo_person-steve-jobs","18":"nyo_person-john-ternus","19":"nyo_person-david-pogue","20":"style-expert-insights"},"acf":{"homepage_position":"","homepage_title":"","homepage_excerpt":"","alternative_og_image":"","headline":{"seo_headline":""},"subheadline":{"optimized_seo_description":"","optimized_social_excerpt":""}},"apple_news_notices":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2026\/09\/apple-ceo-john-ternus-needs-to-make-apple-exciting-again\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":[],"rendered":"","tracker_url":"https:\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/observer.com\/p.js"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2285135876-e1788889607288.jpg?quality=80","coauthors_byline":"By Rich Jaroslovsky","display_channel":"","thumbnail":"\"John