Apple Unveils the CEO Handoff
The tenure of John Ternus has started with a bang. Not a full-on explosion, but a nice loud pop. Certainly not a whimper — as you could definitely categorize some recent Apple events. It seems like Tim Cook set up his successor well, teeing him up — including quite literally in the event's intro video — to unveil the iPhone Duo in his first keynote address. Love it or lust after it, it’s undoubtedly the most interesting new iPhone in years. Probably since the initial device nearly 20 years ago. This is the first one to truly alter the form factor.
Yes, it comes at a cost. $1,999 to be exact — if you’re okay with just 256GB of storage, which you probably won’t be if you’re already committed to buying this device. So yeah, we’re well into the $2,000+ range now. Remember when Steve Ballmer laughed at the $500 starting price 19 years ago? Yeah, times change.
Overall, this year’s iPhone event seemed strong. Ternus brings a new energy that, try as he might, I don’t think Cook was ever quite able to achieve. His keynotes always felt a bit too forced. A bit too rehearsed. Ternus seems far more natural on that stage. The marketing speak may be the same, but you get the sense that he knows these products backwards and forwards – because he simply must given his previous role literally helping to engineer them. Somehow, that knowledge translates into the presentation.
To the point where I’d love to see him on the actual and literal stage again, not just in pre-recorded videos.
As solid as the iPhone Duo unveiling was, can you imagine if Ternus was up there, in-person, pulling one out of his pocket and flipping it open? You can almost see him doing it once and then saying something like: “Did you catch it? Let’s do it again with a camera zoomed in on the screen.” He flips it open again, this time showing off the truly magical software transition. This allows him to tangibly convey that this is Apple at its finest: hardware + software.
Yes, there have been foldables before. Some are even pretty good. But none can do what Apple does on the software front, reimagining how such a device should be used. It’s not just a phone that flips open into a larger screen. It’s a new experience, most akin to a smartphone meeting a tablet. And the only company that has truly nailed the tablet, even after years of trying? Apple.
The iPhone Duo is not just “two phones awkwardly stuck together”, it’s something new.
Look, Apple’s pre-recorded video largely captured all of this. But again, the energy would have been so much better to do it live, as it were. No, sadly, Steve Jobs is not walking back out onto that stage, but Ternus seems to have the right vibe to pull off the in-person keynote. Cook had his own strengths — many of them, obviously — but these presentations were not one of them. Apple has an opportunity here to run it back, as it were, and reclaim the best tech keynote mantle.
Speaking of Jobs, Ternus didn’t shy away from invoking him, even if just indirectly. The opening bit setting up the iPhone as the best device for AI — you don’t say? — was clearly meant to hark back to Jobs original famous iPhone unveil — “...these are not three separate devices…” The notion of the "Intelligent Personal Hub" is straight out of the Jobs "Digital Hub" playbook from way back when. And yes, Ternus even busted out the “one more thing” at the end to unveil the Duo. These call-backs could have elicited groans, or made him seem like too much of a try-hard, but he pulled them off with ease!
Apple seems to be in good hands with Ternus. After reaffirming his commitment to Apple’s values and ways, he dove head-first into the company’s biggest pain point in recent years (well, perhaps beyond the recent component costs): AI. Again, he honed in on the messaging to quickly flip the perceived weakness into a strength. AI runs on devices. Who makes the best devices? That’s right…
And again, the fact that Ternus has spent the last many years overseeing the hardware pipeline suggests that he’ll know exactly how to reveal these devices to the world.
Along those lines, to me, the most interesting part of the keynote may have been what many would say was the least interesting part: the AirPods 5 unveil. There, Ternus managed to convey a real sense of excitement about what amounted to a spec upgrade. Not only that, the features were ones handed down from other products, such as the AirPods Pro. But Ternus knows this is what Apple is all about: honing and whittling until breakthroughs become commonplace technology taken to the masses. I’ve long argued that this product enthusiasm was the actual key to the Jobs keynotes. He was genuinely excited about these products, and it showed. And if he wasn’t, they didn’t make the cut!
I think a few too many products made that cut that probably shouldn’t have in recent years. Including, most notably, the Vision Pro. It’s certainly an impressive piece of technology, but it was clearly launched far too early, with no large market to find. And by many accounts, Ternus may have felt similarly. Apple needs this kind of editor again. Hopefully Ternus can fill that role. This is a good start.
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
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