![\"Apple](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/apple-ceo-tim-cook-speaks-on-stage-during-an-announcement-of-NZUKTIYYVRBRFBEM7VR7BICQDY.jpg\")
<\/p>\nApple chief executive Tim Cook is stepping down from the job that he inherited from the late Steve Jobs, ending a 15-year reign that saw the company\u2019s market value soar by more than US$3.6 trillion (NZ$6.09 trillion) during an iPhone-fuelled era of prosperity.<\/p>\n
Cook, 65, will turn the CEO duties over to Apple\u2019s head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, on September 1 while remaining involved with the Cupertino, California, company as executive chairman. That\u2019s similar to the transitions made by Amazon\u2019s Jeff Bezos and Netflix\u2019s Reed Hastings after they ended their highly successful tenures as CEO.<\/p>\n
To allow Cook to assume his new job, Arthur Levinson will relinquish his role as Apple’s non-executive chairman while remaining on its board of directors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company,” Cook said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cI love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ternus, 50, has been with Apple for the past quarter century, including the past five years overseeing the engineering underlying the iPhone, iPad and Mac \u2014 a role that made him a prime candidate to succeed Cook.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple\u2019s mission forward,\u201d Ternus said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Cook and Ternus may have more to say about the changing of the guard on April 30 when Apple is scheduled to release its financial results for the first three months of the year.<\/p>\n
The transition to a new CEO comes at a pivotal time for Apple. Artificial intelligence has unleashed the most upheaval within the industry since Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007. Apple has gotten off to a rough start in AI after stumbling in its efforts to deliver new features built on the technology, as promised nearly two years ago.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks on stage during an announcement of new products at Apple Park in 2025. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Apple finally turned to Google \u2014 an early leader in the AI race \u2014 for help making the iPhone’s virtual assistant Siri into a more conversational and versatile helper.<\/p>\n
\u201cCook created a major legacy at Apple but it was ultimately time to pass the torch to Ternus with the AI strategy now the focus,\u201d Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said.<\/p>\n
Although he never shook the perception that he lacked Jobs\u2019 vision, Cook leveraged the popularity of the iPhone and other breakthroughs orchestrated by his predecessor to lift Apple to heights that seemed unfathomable when it was on the brink of bankruptcy during the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n
Not long after Cook took over, Apple became the first publicly traded company to be valued at US$1 trillion, then became the first to be valued at US$2 trillion and US$3 trillion, too.<\/p>\n
But after Apple’s slow start in AI, chipmaker Nvidia rode the feverish demand for its processors that power that technology to be the first company to reach the US$4 trillion threshold and then the first to break through the US$5 trillion barrier, too. Apple is currently valued at US$4 trillion (NZ$6.77 trillion), up from US$350 billion (NZ$592 billion) when Tim Cook took over in August 2011, shortly before Jobs died after a long bout with cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteve Jobs was never going to be an easy act to follow, yet Tim Cook took Jobs\u2019 legacy and transformed Apple into a durable, resilient financial powerhouse,\u201d said Forrester Research analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee.<\/p>\n
Besides guiding Apple to a phenomenal run of financial success, Cook also made his mark in an October 2014 essay acknowledging his homosexuality \u2013 a disclosure by the leader of a renowned company that was hailed as a breakthrough for the gay rights movement.<\/p>\n
Before his death, Jobs spent time grooming Cook to be his successor \u2013 a move that reflected the Apple co-founder\u2019s respect and admiration for an executive that he hired in 1998 to oversee the company\u2019s supply chain. Knowing his successor would likely be measured against his legacy, Jobs advised Cook to be guided by his own instincts and never bother musing, \u201cWhat would Steve do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Cook, an Alabama native who previously worked at Compaq Computer and Apple\u2019s former nemesis, IBM, masterminded the intricacies of an international supply chain that plumbed the cheaper labour and efficiency of China\u2019s manufacturing plants. It has played an instrumental role in the production of the Mac computers, iPods, iPhones, iPads and other products that account for most of Apple\u2019s annual revenue of US$416 billion (NZ$704 billion) \u2013 up from US$108 billion (NZ$182 billion) when Cook became CEO.<\/p>\n
But most of Apple\u2019s best-selling devices were all conceived while Jobs was still CEO, raising questions about whether Cook was more of a logistics man than an idea man.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Cook has kept Apple\u2019s growth trajectory moving at a steady clip, he has not overseen a step-change innovation that would reset Apple\u2019s competitive position for the next two decades, as Jobs did with the iPhone,\u201d Chatterjee said.<\/p>\n
The company did create the two popular new product lines \u2013 the Apple Watch and wireless AirPod headphones \u2013 and a still-niche Vision Pro headset for experiencing virtual reality, but none of them have been the kind of breakthroughs that became Jobs\u2019 trademark. Meanwhile, other ballyhooed projects such as Apple\u2019s effort to build a self-driving car never materialised after years of research and investments.<\/p>\n
Apple\u2019s reliance on overseas manufacturing required Cook to master the art of political diplomacy, particularly while US President Donald Trump waged trade wars with China during both his terms in the White House. After persuading Trump to exempt the iPhone and other products from Trump\u2019s first-term tariffs, he faced a more daunting challenge during the current administration.<\/p>\n
While insisting that Apple shift its iPhone manufacturing from China to the US, Trump imposed some tariffs on the device this time around. But Cook still managed to minimize the fees by shifting the production of iPhones destined for the US market to India and also winning some exemptions after promising Apple would invest US$600 billion in the US during Trump\u2019s second administration.<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including more weather damage emerges in Wellington, and charges laid after a girl\u2019s body is found in a car boot. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple chief executive Tim Cook is stepping down from the job that he inherited from the late Steve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,64,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-389655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-north-america","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}