Apple has named John Ternus as its new CEO, replacing Tim Cook, who is stepping down after 15 years at the helm.
Ternus is currently the head of the hardware engineering unit. He has been with Apple for 25 years. He will take over as CEO on September 1. Cook will become chairman of the board.
Cook has been the company's leader since 2011, when Steve Jobs stepped down due to health reasons. He later died.
Cook's decision to step down comes after months of speculation that Apple is looking for a successor. The company has just celebrated its 50th anniversary.
He has described the job so far as “the greatest privilege of my life.” During Cook’s tenure, the company became one of the most valuable in the world. In 2018, the company became the first in the world to be valued at over $1 trillion. It has now reached $4 trillion.
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Cook described Ternus as a visionary leader with "the mind of an engineer, the spirit of an innovator, and the heart of leading with integrity and honor."
"He is clearly the right person to lead Apple into the future," Cook added.
Ternus emerged as the favorite to replace Cook last year after chief operating officer Jeff Williams left the company.
During his 25 years at Apple, Ternus has worked on nearly every key product the company has released, including every generation of the iPad, multiple generations of the iPhone, and the launch of AirPods and the Apple Watch.
He also oversaw the transition of Mac computer processors from Intel to Apple.
In a press release, Ternus referred to Cook as a mentor.
"I am filled with optimism about what we can achieve in the coming years," he added.
Appointing a new leader, with a background in manufacturing and hardware, could allow the company to move away from criticism during Cook's tenure that it is no longer innovative.
While Cook has seen Apple's revenue quadruple thanks to sales, the product line has remained largely the same.
Dipanjan Chatterjee, an analyst at Forrester, praised the financial stability that Cook has brought to Apple, but stressed that she has not given the company a product like the iPhone, which would give Ternus another 20 years of success.
He said the company "has remained stuck in the phone structure" while "it searches for its next growth engine."
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Ternus' appointment shows that Apple is seeking "differentiation" in its products, Chatterjee said, adding that the new leader "must resist the attempts at incremental improvements that have plagued Apple recently, and escape the gravitational pull of the iPhone."
Ken Segall, who was Steve Jobs' creative director for more than a decade, said there were differences between Jobs and Cook.
"Steve was the visionary, Tim the operational person who took over," he said.
The tech giant has also been criticized for its slow pace in moving into Artificial Intelligence. It eventually integrated Google and OpenAI technologies into its operating system.
Following Monday's announcement, OpenAi CEO Sam Altman tweeted that "Tim Cook is a legend."
"I'm very grateful for everything he's done and I'm grateful for Apple," Altman added.
Cook did not come from a manufacturing and hardware background when he joined Apple.
Instead, he had spent years as a business operator at companies like IBM and Compaq. He was a technology executive focused on operations and order fulfillment, logistics, and sales figures, rather than on designing and launching new technology products. Jobs was known for this.
One of the biggest products launched during Cook's leadership was the "Apple Vision Pro," an augmented reality device, but it was not a success.
However, his leadership will be remembered as one of the most successful in the market. Timothy Hubbard, a professor at Indiana University's Mendoza School of Business, said Cook's era at Apple turned the company into "the best in refining, scaling and protecting an incredibly powerful system."
"The real question now is whether the same company can be oriented towards exploration, where success depends on speed, uncertainty and a willingness to experiment," he said.
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Apple's reluctance to dive headlong into AI products and services has set it apart from others, who are spending billions of dollars.
With the new boss, Apple may show interest in deeper integration of AI into hardware, Hubbard said.
