Apple's next CEO has spent years building the cameras he's about to inherit

Image: Apple

After months of swirling rumors, Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced that he'll be stepping down from the position later this year. He's been in the role since 2011, after being named as successor to co-founder Steve Jobs.

Replacing him will be John Ternus, who is currently senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, responsible for leading the teams that make the hardware for the iPhone, iPad, Mac and more. In his letter, Cook describes Ternus as "a brilliant engineer and thinker who has spent the past 25 years building the Apple products our users love so much, obsessed with every detail, focused on every possible way we can make something better, bolder, more beautiful, and more meaningful."

Of course, a transition this big isn't happening in a day; Cook will remain as head of the company until September 1st, 2026, and will continue on as executive chairman. (That does mean there's a chance Ternus is the one to announce the next iPhone, as those typically debut in September; a monumental task in your first few weeks as CEO.)

While Apple is, at its core, a computer and phone company, it's also a massive player in the camera industry thanks to the iPhone. When Tim Cook became CEO, the company's flagship product was the iPhone 4, a phone with a single camera taking single-shot exposures that was nevertheless just beginning to have an impact on the sales of compact cameras. Since then, smartphones have largely taken over that market, now sporting much larger sensors, advanced multi-shot stacking and several camera modules to provide a selection of focal lengths.

We'll have to wait and see if Ternus' background in hardware leads him to make different decisions than Cook, who came from the operations and logistics side of the company. And any high-level changes in the iPhone as a camera, or the Mac as an editing platform, won't be immediately obvious starting with their next versions. But over a few years, we'll start to see the impact of having a new person in charge of what is one of the world's largest camera companies.