❯ Tim Cook writes a final memo on his last day as Apple CEO, “enormous comfort” in handing over to Ternus

handoverCook wrote to Apple staff on his last day as chief executive, saying he takes enormous comfort in handing the helm to someone as “brilliant and wonderful and capable” as John Ternus, and that he will miss the work in ways he can only begin to imagine. Ternus takes over on September 1 and Cook becomes executive chairman of the board, per the full memo obtained by 9to5Mac.

same-day movesCook became CEO in August 2011, about two months before Steve Jobs died, a fifteen-year run. Apple completed a second handover the same day: Phil Schiller is stepping back from running the App Store and product launch events into an advisory role, with the App Store returning to Eddy Cue after an eleven-year gap and events moving back under communications, Bloomberg reported. Schiller had run the App Store since 2015, through both the Epic litigation and the EU’s Digital Markets Act.

a product personCook’s memo defines Ternus as someone who builds products — a line aimed outward. The view that Apple trails its peers in generative AI is two years old now, and the successor’s first exam is not in the supply chain but in the state of its models and the Siri rebuild. The valuation discount Wall Street applies to Apple will track that first term’s results.

▪ SIGNALApple has installed a hardware product executive to make up a software deficit — the first year’s launch cadence will answer it immediately.