Apple Inc. announced today that John Ternus, its senior vice president of hardware engineering, will become chief executive officer on Sept. 1, succeeding Tim Cook, who will transition to executive chairman after roughly 15 years running the iPhone maker.

Apple said in a statement that the board approved the transition unanimously and described it as the result of a long-running succession process. Cook will remain CEO through the northern summer and will work alongside Ternus on the handover. Arthur Levinson, non-executive chairman for the past 15 years, will move to lead independent director when the change takes effect.

Ternus is an Apple lifer. He joined the company in 2001 on the product design team, was named vice president of hardware engineering in 2013, picked up iPhone hardware in 2020, and took the senior vice president job in 2021 when Dan Riccio stepped aside.

Before joining Apple, he spent four years as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems building virtual reality headsets.

Outgoing CEO Tim Cook started in the job on Aug. 24, 2011, taking over from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Jobs died six weeks later of complications from pancreatic cancer.

Though perhaps rightly criticized for a lack of imagination, having failed to shepherd a category-defining new product in the Jobs mold, Cook did, however, oversee Apple’s market capitalization growing roughly tenfold. Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to cross $1 trillion in market cap, then $2 trillion and $3 trillion.

Apple shares fell a bit following the announcement, down more than 1% in late trading after having closed up 1% at $270.76 in the regular session.

Analysts were expecting a generational transition at some point, but perhaps not this quickly.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told Investing.com that the move would land as “mixed” with investors, calling it “a sudden move to executive chairman” and suggesting there had been pressure inside the company for a C-suite change.

Ives said Ternus now faces immediate pressure to deliver on artificial intelligence, an area where Apple has lagged rivals Microsoft Corp., Google LLC and Meta Platforms Inc., and to firm up the product roadmap heading into this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Apple also said Johny Srouji, currently senior vice president of hardware technologies, will become chief hardware officer on Sept. 1, taking over Ternus’ responsibilities. Srouji has run Apple’s silicon team since 2008 and oversaw the transition of Mac to Apple Silicon.

Photo: Apple