John Ternus takes over as Apple CEO, faces AI era

John Ternus steps into the CEO role at a pivotal moment for Apple. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook each solved era-defining problems—building beloved products and scaling them profitably. Ternus faces the AI era, where the App Store's walled garden is no longer secure. The rise of vibe coding, powered by OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Cowork, means users can create apps outside Apple's ecosystem, and Apple cannot ban or control these developments, which are clearly the future.

Apple's strength has been hardware, and the company may pivot to building a device that becomes the AI-era equivalent of the iPhone. However, competition is stiffer: Jony Ive, Apple's former design chief, is developing a rival device at OpenAI. Additionally, profit margins are likely to be thinner than in the past, a concern Cook knows intimately. The stakes are high, and Ternus's strategy will define Apple's next chapter.