Apple made a major announcement today – one that is bound to have a ripple effect not only on the company’s future but also on millions of Apple device owners across the globe. The company today announced that Tim Cook will soon be stepping down from the role of the company’s CEO. He will be succeeded by John Ternus, who is currently the Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering and the changing of the guard will happen on September 1, 2026 – right before Apple’s fall event.
Does that mean Ternus will introduce the iPhone 18 series this year? Maybe, but we will know that for sure only at the launch event later this year. For now, the focus is on the incumbent CEO Cook, who has spent 15 years leading the company one product and one service at a time.
For those of you who have spent little time worrying about Apple beyond its products, Timothy Donald Cook or Tim Cook as he’s popularly called, joined Apple in 1998 as the Senior Vice President for Worldwide Operations. Prior to joining Apple, Cook briefly worked as the Vice President of Corporate Materials for Compaq, which he joined after a short stint working as the CEO of the Reseller Division at Intelligent Electronics. He started his career with IBM where he spent almost 12 years in various roles.
In his role as the Head of Worldwide Operations at Apple, Cook architected the shift away from Apple-owned factories and internal warehouses to contract manufacturing like Foxconn and Wistron. He also reduced the company’s on-hand inventory from months to days and secured long-term deals for critical components, which ultimately fueled Apple’s growth in early 2000s. He took over the role of the Chief Executive Officer of Apple on August 24, 2011, after the founder and the then CEO Steve Jobs resigned from the company owing to health issues.
So why are we talking about all of this? Because Cook’s journey at Apple as the lead of worldwide operations sort of paves way for his role as the company’s CEO wherein he focused on improving efficiency, while introducing new hardware and software products, which ultimately drove growth at the company and turned a $350 billion firm into a $4 trillion giant.
Tim Cook and Apple’s hardware journey
Cook is often referred to as the ‘operations guy’ at Apple for building a ruthless supply-chain ecosystem that has helped the company save billions of dollars. Contrary to that claim, Apple has introduced at least five new hardware product categories since Cook took over as its CEO. We’ll talk about software and services in a minute, so hold on a little longer.
First is the Apple Watch, which was revealed as a fashion accessory on September 9, 2014 (launched in early 2015). Back then it didn’t have a built-in GPS or the array of sensors that constantly monitor your health parameters right from sleep and stress to your cardiac activity and more. Instead, it synced with your iPhone to track your location. But it did come with a built-in heart rate sensor, 8GB of storage and controls to manage Apple Music on an iPhone. Today, the Apple Watch is one the most popular smartwatches in the world.
Then came the AirPods, which the company launched on September 7, 2016 alongside the iPhone 7. These came with the custom Apple W1 chip and sparked one of the biggest trends in the electronics industry, that is, ditching the good-old 3.5mm jack for a pair of wireless earphones. Today, the market is full of AirPods clones and companies are offering 3.5mm jack as a luxury in their smartphones. And in case you’re wondering, the iPhone 7 is the first iPhone that came jack-less!
The following year, Apple announced its HomePod at WWDC 2017 entering the smart speaker market that was being led by the likes of Google Home, Amazon Echo and Sonos. That said, the category didn’t really take off and today Apple has two smart speakers in its portfolio – the classic HomePod that costs around ₹33K and the HomePod Mini that costs around ₹11K.
Another key power move that Apple played in Cook’s tenure is to switch from Intel chips to in-house Apple Silicon in all its PCs and laptops. The announcement was made at WWDC 2020 and the process began with the release of the Apple M1 chip that was released in November the same year. Today, all of the Macs, MacBook and even iPads are powered by Apple Silicon.
The list doesn’t end there. Apple introduced AirTags on April 21, 2021, marking the entry in the Bluetooth-based trackers-category. At the time it came with Ultra Wideband technology which enabled the Precision Finding feature in these devices. Consider it like the GPS for locating an AirTag. The second-gen device launched with expanded connectivity range and improved findability earlier this year.
Lastly, Apple announced the Apple Vision Pro at WWDC 2023 foraying into the mixed-reality headset category. It blends digital content with real world giving users an immersive mixed-reality experience.
Beyond this, Cook is also known for introducing the ‘Pro’ iPhone models. You can read more about it here: From AirPods to ‘Pro’ iPhones: Apple’s Tim Cook era comes to a close
Tim Cook and Apple’s software and services journey
While Cook, in his 15-year-long stint as the CEO of Apple, has launched many new hardware-based products and product categories, his real legacy lies in transforming a hardware-centric firm to a services and software powerhouse. Under his stewardship, services grew from software to support Apple hardware to an independent vertical that drives roughly a quarter of Apple’s revenue.
One of the earliest decisions he took in his direction was focusing on iCloud, a service Jobs announced in early 2011. At the time, iCloud was just a cloud-based service to store content from iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac or PC. Cook, however, described it as a ‘long-game’ strategy. Speaking at a conference in 2012, Cook said that iCloud wasn’t just a product, but a “strategy for the next decade” of Apple’s business. Over time, iCloud has grown into a service that not only stores users’ data but also provides a consistent cloud-experience across Apple’s bouquet of devices.
Under Cook, Apple has also ventured into the fin-tech space with Apple Pay in 2014. At the time, it was the second contactless payment service launched by an electronics company after the launch of Android Pay and Google Wallet in 2011. At present, it is available in more than 100 countries and is expected to arrive in India sometime later this year.
Cook added another important feather to his hat with the launch of Apple Music in 2015. Yes, it’s the same service that you use to listen to all of your favorite tracks, including the latest Taylor Swift songs, and discover new music! The service now has over 95 million subscribers.
That said, Cook’s major push in the services sector came in 2019 when Apple introduced Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, Apple News+ and Apple Card – all at once. Today, Apple TV+ is estimated to have more than 45 million subscribers with popular shows like Ted Lasso, The Morning Show and Severance in its arsenal.
Cook also introduced Apple One in 2020, signaling a clear change in, rather expansion of, priorities, from just hardware and device to include software and services. If you are in the Apple ecosystem and still unaware of what it is, here’s a quick brief for you: Apple One is a subscription service that bundles Apple’s services such as Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, Apple Fitness+, and iCloud in one plan. It’s akin to Google One plans and it starts at ₹195 per month in India.
Lastly, Cook will go down in Apple’s history as the one to start Apple’s great AI push by announcing Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024. However, this service is yet to deliver what Apple promised during the iPhone 16 launch.
Apple and its major acquisitions under Cook
Beyond introducing new products and services, Apple has strategically acquired companies to enrich its portfolio both hardware and software. These acquisitions started with Apple completing the acquisition of Anobit Technologies for a price somewhere between $400 million to $500 million. This deal helped the company secure flash memory components for its iPhones. Similarly, it acquired AuthenTec in 2012 and PrimeSense in 2013. These formed the base for TouchID and FaceID features on iPhones and iPads.
On the audio front, Apple, under Cook, acquired Beats Electronics and Beats Music for a total of $3 billion. This deal formed the base of Apple Music (launched in 2015) and advanced audio devices like AirPods Max. Apple also sells Beats products like headphones, earphones and charging cables, separately. The company also acquired Shazam in 2017 for around $400 million. It is now available as a feature on Apple devices while its website and Android app continue to be available to users outside Apple’s ecosystem.
Similarly, it acquired Texture in 2018, which later became Apple News+. It also acquired Pixelmator in 2024 for an unknown amount bringing the platform’s entire creativity suite to Apple Creator Studio. The same year, DarwinAI and Xnor.ai joined the company, boosting its AI arsenal.
On the chip front, Apple acquired Intel’s smartphone modem business in 2019 for a whopping $1 billion to reduce its dependency on Qualcomm modems and design its own 5G modems like it does in case of Apple Silicon and its A-series chips that power its iPhones. The first 5G modem chip, C1, by Apple appeared in the iPhone 16e that arrived last year. The latest modem, the C1X, can be found in the latest form-first iPhone, the iPhone Air.
It is safe to say that when Cook took over Apple as its CEO after Jobs, there were apprehensions if he would be able to fill in the shoes of the company’s founder and lead innovator. 15 years later, Cook has not only fulfilled the responsibility of that role but also created a legacy of his own.
