John Ternus taking over as CEO sounds like great news for fans of bold Apple hardware design
Ternus will take over from Tim Cook on September 1 and wants Apple to get back to a heritage of bold design dating back to Steve Jobs.
Incoming CEO John Ternus reportedly plans to reinstating the importance of Apple’s famed hardware design – from smartphones to laptops and beyond – when he takes the reins from Tim Cook later this year.
According to the latest edition of Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, Ternus wants a return to the Steve Jobs era when the industrial design team wielded the most power at Apple. Gurman reports that Ternus wants to restore the design team’s authority and has already spent plenty of time with the group prior to the transition scheduled for September 1.
The erstwhile Apple reporter says he’s received insight from internal meetings at Apple and quotes Ternus as saying “the most beautifully designed thing that most customers own is an Apple product. We’re going to make sure that stays the case.”
The report also has Ternus as saying in comments to staffers that: “Apple’s brought truly incredible design to more people than any company in history” and that it was “going to keep focusing on design, because design is core to what we do at Apple.”
Gurman’s report is worth a read, although it is behind Bloomberg’s paywall. He tracks the diminished role of the design team back to the departure of Jony Ive, with the overseeing of the group being passed to COO Jeff Williams instead. Or, as Gurman puts it: “Apple replaced one of the most influential designers in history with the company’s top supply chain executive.”
Under Steve Jobs, Ive was the second most powerful man at Apple. That led to some of the boldest product design we’ve ever seen. However, I was glad to see Ive go by the end. The minimalism obsession began to come at the expense of key user functionality. Apple design was not as flashy in the aftermath but we were released from dongle hell when buying a MacBook, for instance. And we got MagSafe back. What’s followed from Ive since, including that decidedly weird partnership with OpenAI, hasn’t changed my view that a parting of the ways was a net benefit for Apple.
Chris Smith
