John Ternus takes Apple’s reins as AI and rising component costs test the company

John Ternus took control of Apple on Tuesday, ending Tim Cook’s 15-year tenure as chief executive and becoming the company’s second CEO since Steve Jobs left in 2011.

The 51-year-old executive arrives with a hardware-engineering background. He led Apple’s hardware work in recent years and participated in the development of the Apple Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro glasses.

His biggest challenge will be to speed up Apple’s artificial-intelligence strategy. The company has announced new features and improvements for Siri, but it still needs to show that those advances can become products and services capable of competing with OpenAI and Google. Apple’s shares rose 2.1% after the opening of trading on Wall Street.

Apple also faces higher component costs. The company has raised prices for some Mac and iPad models in recent months, and analysts expect increased costs could eventually affect the iPhone as well. At the same time, Apple is seeking new sources of growth. The Apple Watch and AirPods became major additions during Cook’s tenure, but neither matched the iPhone’s impact, while Vision Pro sales fell short of expectations.

The company is working on new product categories, including home devices, robots, camera-equipped AirPods and smart glasses, as Meta and Google move ahead in the smart-glasses market. Ternus’s first major public test will come on September 9, when Apple unveils its next iPhone and Apple Watch generation. Cook will become executive chairman and retain responsibility for relations with political leaders, a role made important by trade tensions and tariffs affecting Apple’s supply chain.