Apple’s John Tarnas will probably be working one of many world’s strongest firms. That job is a minefield

By his 15-year reign as Apple’s prime banana, Tim Cook dinner turned immediately recognizable, highly effective past creativeness, and intensely rich. Most estimates put Mr. Cook dinner’s present web value at about $3 billion, a fortune he accrued primarily via performance-based inventory compensation as Apple’s market capitalization grew greater than 11 occasions beneath his watch, to about $4 trillion.

However this job additionally comes with a whole lot of baggage. Mr. Cook dinner additionally needed to navigate two Trump administrations and one Biden administration, every with its personal stance on Huge Tech, China, and regulation. Mr. Cook dinner additionally confronted off with the FBI over encryption, spent years defending the App Retailer in court docket in opposition to accusations that Apple had turned the iPhone into an unlawful monopoly, and made compromises to remain within the Chinese language market that drew undesirable consideration from human rights teams. Cook dinner final noticed the Imaginative and prescient Professional headset, the corporate’s most formidable {hardware} wager, win over customers. This says nothing about AI, and the outcomes are nonetheless unknown. Incoming CEO John Tarnas will take over all of that.

Listed here are a few of Cook dinner’s largest battles over time.

Can we all bear in mind the FBI encryption battle in 2016? After a mass taking pictures at a vacation gathering in San Bernardino, California, the FBI demanded that Apple assist unlock the shooter’s iPhone. Cook dinner rejected this, arguing that encryption was the one significant safety in opposition to the publicity of individuals’s private information, and that being pressured to interrupt it might set a harmful precedent. The standoff in the end ended with the FBI discovering one other means into the breach, nevertheless it cemented Apple’s id as a privateness firm and cast long-standing tensions with governments world wide. Ternus inherits that id and the obligations that include it.

For Cook dinner, the App Retailer antitrust battle was no imply feat. Epic Video games sued Apple in federal court docket over the requirement that apps use Apple’s in-app cost system and a 30% minimize of gross sales (and when the choose pressed Cook dinner on why customers could not merely pay builders instantly for a lower cost, Cook dinner’s solutions did little to quell her skepticism). In 2021, Apple virtually received the case, with the court docket refusing to name it a monopoly however ordering it to permit builders to hyperlink to exterior cost choices. The corporate complied within the narrowest sense, charging a 27% charge on outdoors purchases (with some low cost!), however the court docket discovered this in contempt. The Ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals upheld the ruling in late 2025, and after a request for reconsideration was denied final month, Apple is now making ready to attraction to the Supreme Court docket, which had already refused to listen to the sooner go well with. Decrease courts nonetheless want to find out how a lot charges Apple can really cost.

This epic saga is only one entrance in a broader antitrust struggle. In March 2024, the U.S. Division of Justice charged Apple with illegally dominating the smartphone market by limiting third-party app and system builders, together with competing smartwatches, digital wallets, and messaging providers, in ways in which make it troublesome for customers to modify from iPhones. A federal choose denied Apple’s movement to dismiss the case, which means the case may very well be fought in court docket for years. And simply this week, Apple revealed it faces a possible $38 billion superb in India, the place regulators discovered the corporate responsible of abusing its dominant place within the app market and refused to offer required monetary information. The case is sophisticated by the truth that Apple’s market share in India continues to be comparatively low at about 9%, making it an uncommon angle to problem the findings. Ternus has taken over this battle halfway via, and the App Retailer’s income mannequin is beneath direct judicial menace.

China can also be all the time engaged in an more and more uncomfortable balancing act. Mr. Cook dinner constructed Apple’s manufacturing operations round China’s provide chain, leaving the corporate deeply depending on a rustic that has develop into more and more assertive and unpredictable over time. He additionally made some disagreeable concessions concerning enterprise operations within the Chinese language market. Most notably, it eliminated VPN apps from China’s App Retailer and saved Chinese language customers’ iCloud information on state-controlled servers. Mr. Cook dinner proved adept at shielding Apple from tariffs and commerce struggle dangers throughout the president’s first time period, partially as a result of he cultivated a private relationship with Mr. Trump. In response to the information of Cook dinner’s resignation, Trump stated:incredible man! ” Apple has already indicated that Cook dinner, as chairman, will proceed to assist Ternas negotiate the geopolitical terrain. That is an acknowledgment that these relationships are troublesome and that Mr. Cook dinner’s institutional information stays extraordinarily helpful.

However AI is probably essentially the most urgent unresolved problem dealing with Ternus. John Gianandrea, Apple’s head of AI, will formally depart the corporate this month after repeated delays in rolling out Siri, which makes use of extra refined AI. Relatively than relying solely by itself fashions, Apple leverages each Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to energy some Apple Intelligence options. Bob O’Donnell, long-time market analysis analyst told Reuters Ternus’ largest problem will possible be “getting a greater AI story and delivering merchandise collectively that depend on Apple’s personal capabilities quite than third events,” it was introduced on Monday, however some argue that the corporate would look smarter in hindsight if it waited out the costly competitors at the moment going down amongst at present’s largest AI firms.

Final however not least, Apple’s govt adjustments are much less mentioned, however they do make sense. Ternus takes over a considerably restructured administration staff after a number of different Apple executives, together with its longtime COO, left the corporate over the previous 12 months. legal advisorhead of UI design. That is each a problem and a possibility for him to make his personal evaluation of issues comparatively rapidly.

What ties most of those challenges collectively is that Mr. Cook dinner’s biggest talent was his capacity to handle advanced relationships with governments and companions whereas protecting the enterprise on monitor. One of many extra fascinating questions within the transition could also be whether or not Mr. Turnus has the identical abilities or whether or not Mr. Cook dinner will stay as govt chairman to fill a void.

The scarier query at stake in Ternas’ tenure is whether or not the world that made Apple essentially the most helpful firm on earth might really finish. Many business watchers imagine that AI brokers will develop into the first means folks work together with providers, and the App Retailer and its 30% minimize will develop into a distant reminiscence. Mix this with the prospect of thrilling new {hardware}, like OpenAI at the moment in growth, eroding the iPhone’s grip on our lives, and Tarnas could also be on his strategy to navigating greater than sophisticated relationships and lawsuits.