For fifteen years, an Apple product launch has followed the same ritual: the lights dim, and Tim Cook walks out to open the show. On Wednesday, for the first time since he took over as CEO in 2011, that won't happen.
Apple's "Surprise and Shine" event on September 9 will be the first iPhone launch presented entirely under John Ternus, who became CEO on September 1 after Cook moved into the newly created role of executive chairman.
A Handoff, Not a Departure
Cook isn't gone. He's expected to attend the event's internal screening, and as executive chairman he'll keep working on the parts of the job that always suited him best — relationships with policymakers and heads of state around the world. But he won't appear in the event video itself, and people close to the company say he may not appear at all.
The board's succession process was described as long-planned rather than sudden: Arthur Levinson, who had chaired Apple's board for fifteen years, stepped into the role of lead independent director the same day Ternus took over as CEO.
The transition follows a thoughtful, long-term succession planning process.
Apple, in its official announcement
Who Is John Ternus
Ternus joined Apple's product design team in 2001 and spent the better part of a quarter-century inside the company's hardware operation, rising to senior vice president of hardware engineering in 2021. He's been the person standing behind the launch of the iPad and AirPods lines — an engineer's engineer, by most accounts, stepping into a job that, under Cook, became as much about diplomacy and supply chains as products.
Cook's fifteen years took Apple from a company worth roughly $350 billion to one valued at about $4.6 trillion — a run that makes Wednesday's event, whatever gets announced on stage, secondary to the fact that someone else is now the one announcing it.
What's Actually Launching
Beyond the leadership story, Wednesday's event is shaping up to be one of Apple's biggest in years: alongside the standard iPhone lineup, Apple is expected to debut its first foldable device, along with new Apple Watches and AirPods. The event starts at 10 a.m. Pacific.
