Apple’s new CEO is just the right amount of Steve Jobs

I’m a Tim Cook fan. I placed him at No. 2 on my list of important Apple people earlier this month, and once argued that he’s been a better CEO than Steve Jobs. The man’s a legend. But that doesn’t mean Apple needs a Tim Cook clone (a copyCook, if you will) as its next boss.

Different times call for different leaders. When Cook inherited the crown in 2011, Apple boasted an enviable roster of market-defining products but faced a raft of strategic and regulatory hurdles. What the company needed was a safe pair of hands to further monetise the product brilliance that was already in place, while threading a path through a series of pivots and political minefields. Cook achieved those things with aplomb, and his legacy is secure. His successor, however, will need a different set of skills.

The 2026 version of Apple is long on money, influence, and logistical savvy. It extracts favorable treatment from suppliers and presidents alike, dominates multiple markets, and regularly beats its own stratospheric revenue records. But if we’re honest, it’s short on spark. It’s increasingly in danger of losing its reputation as a company that makes insanely great products.

Focusing on the product above all else was the philosophy that made Apple the powerhouse Cook inherited and stewarded so carefully. At the end of the 90s, Steve Jobs and Jony Ive bonded over their refusal to compromise until a product was perfect, whether that meant hiding the cost of materials from engineers so they wouldn’t be influenced by profit motives, or shouting at staff until they achieved the impossible. It led to the iMac, iPod, and iPhone. But that perfectionism appears to have taken a backseat under Cook’s management.

We had the Apple Maps debacle as early as 2012, which Cook has since described as his first really big mistake as CEO. But it certainly wasn’t his last. There were products that never made it to release, from AirPower in 2019 to the Apple Car in 2024. Far more serious were the bad products which did: the Magic Mouse with a charging port on the bottom in 2015; the Apple Pencil dongle in 2022; Liquid Glass last year; and Siri, endlessly. There were plenty of memorable missteps under Jobs, with Antennagate perhaps the most obvious example. But Apple was never this fallible under its demanding, unreasonable founder.

In that context, I find it pleasing to see that John Ternus, the incoming Apple CEO whose reign will begin this fall, shows every sign of following Steve Jobs’ philosophy rather than Cook’s. Last week, Workweek business writer Trung Phan unearthed and posted to Twitter/X a speech Ternus made two years ago, and it offers a glimpse into the way he regards the product development process. Addressing Penn Engineering School’s class of 2024, Ternus related an anecdote about the Cinema Display, the first product he worked on at Apple:

At some point in my first year, I found myself at a supplier facility. I was far away from home, and it was well past midnight. I was using a magnifying glass to count the number of grooves on the head of the screws on the back of the display. And I was arguing with the supplier because these parts had 35 grooves. They were supposed to have 25.

I remember stepping back for a minute and thinking to myself, ‘What the hell am I doing? Is this normal?’ And I realised it might not be normal, but it’s right. It’s right because I’d already spent months working on that product, and if you’re going to spend that much time on something, you should put in your very best effort. Maybe a customer notices, maybe they don’t, but either way, whenever I saw one of those displays on someone’s desk, it mattered to me to know that my teammates and I had considered everything about it and done the very best job we could.

That right there is not a Tim Cook anecdote. That’s a Steve Jobs anecdote. He’s almost word for word, in fact, when it comes to the principle that details matter whether the customer sees them or not: Paul Jobs, a skilled carpenter, instilled in his son the importance of properly crafting the backs of fences and cabinets even if they were hidden, and the younger Jobs took a similar stance on motherboards and the inside of Mac casings.

Sometimes this obsession created logistical problems, which may be why the efficiency-focused Cook took a different approach. But it also led to the MacBook Air and the iPod. Tim Cook achieved a huge amount, but Apple didn’t release a product of that caliber during his entire time as CEO. Many hits, many sensible updates, nothing to make a real dent in the universe. Perhaps John Ternus will change that.

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

Apple is getting a new CEO!

Tim Cook to step down as Apple CEO in shock announcement. (But don’t worry, he’s fine.)

Alex Blake explores Cook’s legacy: 9 small bets that paid off and 2 big swings that didn’t. And explains why John Ternus is the right pick at the right time.

Cook’s reward for exemplary service? The worst job in the world.

John Ternus is not inheriting your father’s Apple, says the Macalope.

Cook isn’t just leaving big shoes to fill–they’re also very expensive. Michael Simon will miss the outgoing CEO’s sneaker game most of all.

Ternus’ promotion to Apple CEO may have claimed its first casualty.

Trending: Top stories

Filipe Esposito reveals how Apple solved the RAM crisis before it even arrived.

Mahmoud Itani reminds us of 10 iPad milestones that changed the tablet computer forever.

Want to improve your iPhonography? Here’s how we’re taking much better photos with the iPhone.

The end of the iPad is beginning. With a touchscreen MacBook and folding iPhone coming, Apple’s tablet will be obsolete before we know it.

Podcast of the week

The iPhone 18 Pro is just a few months away. We talk about the latest iPhone 18 Pro rumors, and what’s involved in reporting Apple leaks on the latest episode of the Macworld Podcast.

You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Reviews corner

• iVanky FusionDock Ultra: New 26-port Mac docking station has it all.

The rumor mill

iPhone 18 Pro and Ultra details revealed in leaker’s extensive Q&A.

We might have to wait a little longer for the first touchscreen MacBook.

Apple is developing a 200MP iPhone camera, but we might not get it for a while.

Video of the week

Macworld contributor Filipe Esposito recently broke an exclusive report about the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro and its colors. Esposito has a solid reputation for breaking Apple stories, and in this interview, he talks with Macworld’s Michael Simon and Jason Cross about his process for getting inside information. Enjoy more Macworld videos on YouTube, TikTok or Instagram.

Software updates, bugs, and problems

Here’s how AI is working to make your iPhone and Mac nearly impervious to attacks.

New iPhone phishing scam involves email sent from Apple servers.

iOS 26.4.2 is out now with more security and bug fixes for your iPhone.

iOS 27 may not support iPhone 11, 2nd-gen iPhone SE.

And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters, including our new email from The Macalope–an irreverent, humorous take on the latest news and rumors from a half-man, half-mythical Mac beast. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, or X for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.