Underneath Tim Prepare dinner, Apple attained $4.6 trillion market capitalisation, constructed an environment friendly provide chain community that offered over three billion iPhones, and successfully stewarded Steve Jobs’ legacy. Whereas Mr. Prepare dinner’s period can be remembered for scale and operational effectivity, these twin markers of progress couldn’t have been achieved with out an underlying stable product line-up. That is precisely where hardware engineering comes in — the unit headed by John Ternus.
Mr. Ternus joined Apple’s cinema show workforce in 2001 after a stint designing VR headsets at a small agency known as Digital Analysis Programs. His first mission at Apple was the Cinema Show monitor. The corporate had simply launched the iPod and was basking in its glory. However shoppers have been shifting to mobile gadgets because the world was coming on-line.
Apple wanted a product to seize the pattern as Finnish handset maker Nokia’s 3310 cell phones — shipped with small, green-lit show screens — have been promoting like scorching truffles. Whereas these gadgets have been stable, their performance was restricted. But they stuffed the hole by growing cupboard space that may very well be utilized by patrons to retailer recordsdata that included music. This was consuming into the music participant market.
Additionally Learn: Who is the new Apple CEO, John Ternus and what’s next for Tim Cook?
With the assistance of French pc scientist Jean-Marie Hullot, who wrote programmes for the unique Macintosh and working system for a smartphone, Apple constructed the iPhone, a tool that redefined cellular telephony by ditching bodily keypad — a design change that elbowed BlackBerry apart within the high-end cellular market, showcasing Apple’s show {hardware} prowess.
A seat on the desk
In 2010, Apple unveiled iPad, a tool that additional solidified its place in making an industry-leading shopper {hardware}. In 2013, the identical yr it launched iPad Air, the corporate elevated Mr. Ternus as vp of {hardware} engineering, a transfer that recognised his contributions by enhancing his span and management over product strains.
By 2021, he was made the worldwide head of {hardware} engineering, reporting to Mr. Prepare dinner instantly and successfully operating engineering for each main product line Apple sells.
Apple’s personal succession language credit him with being instrumental is introducing a number of new product strains, particularly AirPods and iPad. Mr. Ternus has additionally been recognized for pushing for the creation of iPadOS again in 2019 as a definite working system relatively than leaving the iPad operating a stripped-down model of iOS — a choice that permit the product’s {hardware} capabilities really matter.
However the clearest preview of the Ternus period is the iPhone Air, which launched in 2025 as Apple’s thinnest iPhone ever. It gave a glimpse into how Mr. Ternus builds and operates. Quite than merely shrinking an present iPhone, his workforce coordinated carefully with {hardware} applied sciences workforce led by Johny Srouji to suit pro-level efficiency right into a dramatically thinner chassis.
That meant a brand new A19 Professional chip, Apple’s N1 wi-fi chip, and — most notably — the C1X modem, Apple’s second-generation in-house mobile modem, which issues enormously for a telephone with a thinner, smaller battery.
The iPhone Air reveals how Mr. Ternus’s {hardware} engineering groups and Mr. Srouji’s chip groups work in lockstep from the earliest phases of a product’s design. The modem, the processor, and the bodily chassis have been engineered collectively relatively than in sequence.
The silicon issue
Mr. Srouji is central to understanding how Apple builds gadgets in the present day. He joined Apple in 2008 and helped develop the A4, the corporate’s first customized chip, and has since led the build-out of a whole in-house silicon operation. At present, the A-series chips powers the iPhone and iPad, the M-series chips run each Mac, iPad Professional, and Imaginative and prescient Professional, and the C-series powers the mobile modems and the N1 networking chip handles Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Thread.
The modem effort specifically has been a multi-year endeavor. Apple acquired Intel’s smartphone modem enterprise in 2019 after its authorized battle with Qualcomm, and spent roughly six years constructing an inside baseband engineering workforce earlier than the C1 lastly shipped.
Apple’s intends to deliver customized modems to extra of its line-up over time — although its flagship iPhone 17 Professional fashions nonetheless ship with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X80 modems, suggesting the transition isn’t full.
As a part of the management reshuffle round Mr. Ternus’s promotion, Mr. Srouji’s function has additionally expanded. As Apple’s chief {hardware} officer, he’ll oversee each {hardware} applied sciences and {hardware} engineering groups — teams run by him and Mr. Ternus respectively.
In impact, the chip design and bodily product engineering features — lengthy carefully coupled however organisationally separate — now sit below one govt, reporting to the CEO. Such a deeply built-in {hardware} division is prone to ship a stable line up of premium merchandise.
There may be quite a lot of chatter on-line that Apple may unveil their first foldable telephone at Cupertino on September 9. We received’t know for positive till its official. However the hearsay mill has been churning this out for a minimum of a month now. Aside from a foldable telephone, below Mr. Ternus, the corporate would doubtless construct a brand new product line-up within the smart-glasses phase, and in addition broaden capabilities of Imaginative and prescient Professional.
The software program alignment
However past {hardware}, Mr. Ternus has an essential job of integrating software program developments at Apple with the merchandise constructed by Mr. Srouji’s workforce. Coming from a botched AI launch that culminated in a $250 million class-action settlement in May, the corporate wants to point out that its consumer interface is as a lot class-leading as its {hardware}.
Apple Intelligence arrived later than competing choices, a promised overhaul of Siri is delayed, and Apple has in the end turned to Google to assist energy a few of its AI options relatively than relying solely on in-house fashions. Mr. Prepare dinner’s tenure was outlined by operational excellence and disciplined growth into new {hardware} classes; what it didn’t produce was a signature AI product to match the iPhone or Mac.
That’s the issue now sitting on Mr. Ternus’s desk. He inherits an organization with an enormously worthwhile {hardware} enterprise that features product strains he personally constructed, however one with no clear AI technique of its personal. How he integrates the corporate’s software program capabilities into the gadgets it makes within the age of AI brokers can be tracked carefully.
Printed – September 03, 2026 12:21 pm IST
