John Ternus Is Engineering a New Era for Apple: The Best Inventions of 2026
Short summary
Apple's new CEO John Ternus unveiled the iPhone Duo, a $2,000+ foldable phone that represents the company's biggest design shift since 2007. The article examines whether Ternus—a private engineer with no Jobs or Cook-style public presence—can lead Apple while the company lags behind competitors in the AI race.
- Ternus pushed the Duo project for years despite competitors releasing foldables first, insisting on solving the visible crease problem through custom materials and a precision hinge with 100+ interior components rather than settling for "good enough."
- Apple is conspicuously absent from the AI arms race that's consuming Microsoft, Google, Meta, and others; the company skipped Trump's September AI summit with tech leaders, betting instead on modest, privacy-focused AI for devices rather than frontier models.
- Ternus differs fundamentally from his predecessors—he's a detail-oriented hardware engineer (not a visionary like Jobs or a political operator like Cook), which signals Apple is returning to product-first strategy after years emphasizing services growth.
Full summary
John Ternus became Apple's CEO on September 1st, and he's a fundamentally different leader than his predecessors. Tim Cook was a master of global politics and supply chains; Steve Jobs was a visionary showman. Ternus is a private, detail-oriented engineer who spent 25 years climbing the ranks by obsessing over how products actually work and feel. He was barely known outside Apple until becoming a senior hardware executive in 2021. His appointment signals a deliberate shift back toward hardware innovation after years of Apple pushing services revenue—a move that makes sense given his background in product design and engineering.
The article frames Ternus as swimming against the current of Silicon Valley's AI obsession. While Microsoft, Google, Meta, and others are pouring hundreds of billions into AI development, Apple is building modest, privacy-focused AI tools for everyday use. Ternus skipped a September lunch where Trump met with tech CEOs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to discuss AI's future. Apple's executives aren't worried about being left behind, arguing instead that people will always want physical devices to interact with—iPhones, not just AI chatbots. Critics see this as a legacy company selling expensive gadgets while missing the technological shift happening around it.
The iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable phone starting at $1,999, embodies Ternus's engineering approach. Apple filed a foldable phone patent back in 2011, years before other companies attempted it. Early foldables from competitors were fragile and featured an ugly crease down the middle. Ternus's team solved these problems through advances in Apple silicon, a new display engine for seamless screen transitions, and redesigned iOS controls moved to the right side for easier thumb access. The phone represents the kind of incremental-but-polished innovation that defines Apple's strategy under Ternus—not revolutionary, but executed so well that the technology disappears into the experience.