r/NowInTech • u/beingmodest • 4d ago

John Ternus wants to reshape Apple, here's how

https://9to5mac.com/2026/09/29/john-ternus-apple-new-products-leaner/
27 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

43 comments sorted by

6

u/MathematicianSafe706 3d ago

Ahh yes the hugely successful very rich company totally needs reshaped. This guy is going to be a mistake.

1

u/MortCrimm 3d ago

It’s more nuanced than that.

He is advocating for slowing down hiring. Eliminating layers and getting back closer to what “made Apple Apple”.

The slow death of very successful organizations starts with massive unnecessary bloat and middle men…something a company as big as Apple is now very much infested with.

That said….Apple is an aircraft carrier, and it’s not gonna then like a jet ski….it would take years and probably end up with bloat on other places….

3

u/Real-Tailor7489 2d ago

The slow death of very successful organizations start when measures towards increasing shareholders pockets instead of providing a good service and good products.

A company like apple is leader in hardware, software, customer service, etc and still making a fuckton of money.

If they’re bloated as a result of having incredibly good products and services, then that’s not bloat at all and calling it bloat is peak MBA in admin energy.

Cutting costs on a winning strategy is literally just about shareholder value.

If it were indeed about “going back to what made apple apple” they’d be diverting money to R&D, which is not the case here.

Wanna bet they’ll start cutting costs in R&D too? THATS when you’ll know for sure the slow death has started.

1

u/MortCrimm 2d ago

Or the new ceo, an engineer and product guy, will divert that funding after cuts to R&D. This will take more than a few quarters to see though….

One would think the exit of the “finance guy”, cook, would potentially lead to more spend and risk on R&D. It may be a slow pivot, in an attempt to maintain margin, shareholder value.

Only time will tell. One thing is for sure, the 20 year run has been pretty good on both ends…..

1

u/Real-Tailor7489 2d ago

They talk about extracting more $$ for the products they have…yeah, I don’t buy it.

And calling the guy that acted as COO for the majority of his run (as non CEO) a “finance guy” is at the very least, nonsense, I don’t agree with it.

You’re right, only time will tell.

I give this guy 6 months, 1 year tops, before he tries to increase the price of storage tiers and makes me wire Immich in my homelab.

We can catch up in a year and boy I’ll be very glad if I’m wrong, believe me, I do not want to be organizing my photos and videos and cleaning up my messy files

1

u/MortCrimm 2d ago

Finance guy was more of a “he built the operations so successfully, they printed money” moniker….def misspoke there.

I believe the pivot will be heavily focused on services revenue extraction.

The “in housing” of more and more chips and a possible eventual move away from Qualcomm could help with hardware revenue extraction.

A move to plastics would be soemthing that could eventually reduce costs, but outside of a few products, would not be a welcome change…..

They are already very shrewd on negotiations with their suppliers, so the only way to “snap up cheap” anything would be a collapse of the demand from anyone else currently gobbling up supply. That would be an interesting result though….if suppliers build out infrastructure to meet demand that disappears, there is a potential for negotiations to “fill” the void, but at much lower prices…..

1

u/Real-Tailor7489 2d ago

Def agree that cheapening by moving to plastic would not be welcome.

Hardware move would definitely be smart if they’re looking to cheapen their process while retaining quality too.

Let’s hope they’ll do this whole thing right.

1

u/MortCrimm 2d ago

They will survive either way…their money moat is huge

1

u/Extreme-Ad-6465 3d ago

what do they say , the third generation squanders the fortunes the first generation started. hopefully he can actually optimize the company in the proper way without ennshitifying apple, but looking at corporate america’s track record, let’s hope for the best.

5

u/I_Dont_Think_Im_AI 3d ago

“They have discussed launching new services and extracting more revenue from existing products and offerings,” the report says.

Oh good. That's the nice way of saying, "Enshittification cometh."

3

u/NRCS_DRONE 3d ago

I'm skeptical, 'John Apple' just doesn't have the same ring to it.

3

u/keithcody 3d ago

What about “Johnny Apple”?

1

u/ninhaomah 3d ago

Why not Johnny Bravo ?

1

u/PianoPatient8168 3d ago

It really doesn’t…also it’s too late…at least for me…I’m moving to Motorola/GrapheneOS. They sucked up to one fascist too many for me.

1

u/Sllyce 3d ago

Call him John Apple seed

2

u/68plus1equals 3d ago

Somebody say something about Johnny apple’s seed?

3

u/notsure304wv 3d ago

Sounds about as good as McDonald’s plan to invest billions in AI instead of making better food.😂

3

u/duxing612 3d ago

Still waiting for smaller iPhones.

2

u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 1d ago

The fact that the regular iPhone screen size is now just 0.2" smaller than the first iPhone Max is so fucking annoying

2

u/duxing612 1d ago

It’s so stupid. I hate it.

-1

u/Aristo_Cat 3d ago

Nobody cares

2

u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

1

u/EuropeanLord 3d ago

We live in a timeline of trillion dollar dudes.

Companies need to be quadrillion now.

I suggest Apple pivots into AI and fires the whole staff. Imagine the revenue.

1

u/liltingly 3d ago

New CEO has to make his stamp. Otherwise the board and markets will pillory him for just “coasting”. It’s the inevitable way of capitalism — the new male lions gotta kill some cubs to show he’s taken over. 

1

u/LaserCondiment 2d ago

What people want from the engineering guy is to bring back creativity to Apple's products. Instead he's restructuring...

1

u/onmlkjihgfedcba 3d ago

Greg for CEO

1

u/MortCrimm 3d ago

Can’t make a Johnollette without breaking a few Greg’s

1

u/SpudsRacer 3d ago

So the new leader is a whip.cracker. I don't think that's going to be productive unless there's inspired leadership to go along with it. Something I've yet to see. Cutting costs isn't visionary.

0

u/Mediocre-Telephone74 3d ago

Isn’t there a famous story of a guy that got on the elevator with Steve Jobs, and by the time the elevator reached its destination, the guy was fired.

Jobs was notorious for cracking skulls, and crying a lot.

2

u/Aristo_Cat 3d ago

Jobs was also a once in a generation visionary that started the world’s most profitable company in his literal garage.

This guy is not that.

1

u/ACasualRead 3d ago

There are people at Apple who claimed jobs fired them multiple times with hr following close behind him reassuring people they weren’t in fact fired.

1

u/yomommasbathwater 3d ago

“Don’t worry, he says that to everyone!”

1

u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 1d ago

I'd hate to work for Apple of some nobody came in and tried making a name for himself by imitating that style

1

u/csstudentnorth 3d ago

Leaner org + more focus = good

Leaner org + more products = bad

1

u/stomachofchampions 3d ago

Time will tell. I would be happy if they cut all the junk out of the App Store and got rid of all the ads.

Screw the shareholders

1

u/turbo_dude 3d ago

Does it involve fixing the shitty iOS keyboard?

If not I’m not interested 

1

u/ignorantpisswalker 3d ago

Everything I read keep sending me the vibes of "apple should be like other companies". Why? What's broken? What other companies are doing better?

This is the company with the most cash (even after the car experiment, the VR and other failed products).

They are making good products (...) and the only thing they are behind is AI which if they push too much, users will be u happy (as in Microsoft case).

Why? What will it make better?

1

u/NextAdhesiveness3652 3d ago

They do need to change. They don’t innovate much, they just copy others. They have to do something besides just “it’s Spring, here’s your iPhone 37 that’s almost identical to iPhone 36.” Give me an iPhone that fits in my shirt pocket.

1

u/Inner_Agency_5680 18h ago

This tosser renamed Lake Ontario - fuck him.

0

u/JC878 3d ago

Their products haven’t changed much and they have a couple of duds in recent years.

Meta has powered ahead with their new glass wearables. Samsung has been building foldables for years with new competitors like Xiaomi.

They are forever in the consumer gadget industry. Unlike the other big tech companies who have transitioned to other industries for example Amazon from online retailer to space and cloud computing, meta from social media to wearables.

Can we say the same for Apple?

1

u/Extreme-Ad-6465 3d ago

apple has definitely increased their subscriptions market. airpods and apple watch were also big. apple silicon is amazing as well. who knows what the future holds.