New Apple CEO: What John Ternus Plans to Do Differently Than Tim Cook

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Under Tim Cook, Apple's famous industrial design team lost influence—not just since the departure of chief designer Jony Ive. According to reports, successor John Ternus plans to change that.

Apple's design department is set to regain more weight under future CEO John Ternus. The once most powerful team in the company lost significant influence after the departure of design legend Jony Ive. Ternus has made the restructuring of the department one of his top priorities, Bloomberg reports.

Gradual Restructuring

Apple's Industrial Design team, known as ID, was long the most influential department in the company. Under design chief Jony Ive, the iPod, iMac, and iPhone were created there. However, since 2015, the Brit began to step back, completely leaving Apple in 2019 and ending his collaboration with the newly founded design firm LoveFrom in 2022. Since then, the department has steadily lost significance.

As Bloomberg reports, other Apple teams now only seek prototypes, CAD data, or support in material and color selection from the design department. CEO Tim Cook also visits the team significantly less often than Steve Jobs once did. With John Ternus as the new company head starting in September, this could change. The former hardware chief has already signaled how important the design team is to him.

Ternus: The Best Design from Apple

A first signal for the renewed importance of the design team: In January, Ternus took over the position previously held by Jeff Williams and temporarily occupied by Tim Cook—the design team now reports directly to him. According to Bloomberg, Ternus is aware that a fundamental restructuring is necessary.

The department today mainly consists of younger designers. This presents opportunities but also exacerbates the talent pipeline issue. At an internal meeting, Ternus stated that Apple would continue to focus on design, as it is the core of the company. Apple has brought good design to more people than any other company. For many, the product with the best design is from Apple. “We will ensure that this remains the case,” Ternus said, according to Bloomberg. Whether there will be another design guru like Jony Ive remains uncertain.

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