Since stepping into the role of CEO, John Ternus has sharply shifted Apple’s spotlight back toward design—an area that the company hasn’t emphasized this deeply since Steve Jobs. The industrial design and human interface teams, long dispersed under multiple leaders, are now getting unified attention under Ternus’s leadership. He’s assumed direct oversight of design, making it a central function rather than a side responsibility. What’s more, Ternus reportedly spends multiple studio visits each week, a stark departure from the infrequent check-ins under Tim Cook.
From Engineering Roots to Design Leader
Ternus has always been known as an engineer. Under Tim Cook, priorities leaned heavily toward supply chain optimization, financial discipline, and scaling. But now, design is no longer backgrounded—Ternus works closely with hardware engineering chiefs like Johny Srouji and hardware engineering lead Tom Marieb. These partners help execute his vision, while finance and operations are delegated to CFO Kevan Parekh and COO Sabih Khan respectively. The shift underlines Ternus’s determination to shape Apple’s products as much as its numbers.
Rebuilding What Was Lost
The departure of famed designer Jony Ive in 2019 left a hole at the heart of Apple’s design ethos. His studio, LoveFrom, took some talent with it, and Apple has lost other design leaders since. Alan Dye, who oversaw software interface design, and Evans Hankey, former head of industrial design, both exited to join OpenAI. Their roles were replaced internally; Molly Anderson now heads industrial design, while Steve Lemay leads human interface design. Though neither was as visible as their predecessors, recent product debuts like the iPhone Duo have elevated their profiles. There currently appears to be no plan to bring in an external chief design officer.
Design under Ternus is being raised to a top-tier priority—paralleling what Jobs once achieved. Leading both design and engineering allows for a tighter feedback loop between functionality and aesthetics. It may still be early, but groundwork is being laid to reestablish Apple’s reputation for design excellence.
