Tim Cook Steps Down at WWDC, Leaving Apple’s AI Struggles to Ternus

Cook has led Apple since August 2011, steering the company from a hardware-focused business into one where services generate over $85 billion annually. His tenure covered the Apple Watch launch, AirPods, the M-series chip transition, and a market cap that crossed $3 trillion. Handing off at a developer conference, where the focus is software and AI rather than a product reveal, is a quietly understated exit for someone who reshaped consumer technology for a decade and a half.

John Ternus, who spent years leading Apple’s hardware engineering, will inherit a company navigating a complicated AI moment. Siri has fallen visibly behind competitors from Google and Amazon, and the features Apple announced at WWDC 2024 shipped late and incomplete. The pressure on Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell, who moved from Vision Pro to lead the AI team in April 2025, is real.

The speaker lineup reflects where Apple’s priorities currently sit:

• Federighi leading AI and software, a broader mandate than his previous role suggests
• Rockwell introducing the updated Siri after his Vision Pro chapter ended quietly
• Jeff Norris on visionOS, keeping the headset platform alive despite thin sales
• Dr. Sumbul Desai on health features, one of the few areas where Apple holds a defensible lead

The September iPhone event will be the first major Apple presentation Ternus runs from the opening line. That makes this WWDC a structural farewell rather than a ceremonial one. Cook will give remarks, Federighi will carry the show, and the transition will happen without much fanfare.

Whether Cook addresses his departure directly is an open question. Apple tends to treat leadership changes as administrative facts rather than emotional milestones, and Cook himself has never been drawn to the kind of reflective public moment that departure typically invites. If he says anything personal at all, it will probably be brief.