Apple CEO Tim Cook steps down days before biggest shake-up to the iPhone in decades

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September 9 promises to be a blockbuster event, with Tim Cook in the audience instead of on stage

Tim Cook ends his remarkable 15-year stint as Apple Chief Executive on September 1, 2026.

During his reign, Apple introduced new products such as Apple Watch, AirPods, and Apple Vision Pro, as well as a slew of subscription services, including Apple TV, Fitness+, and Apple Music. Under Mr Cook, Apple soared from a valuation of $350 billion (£260bn) when co-founder Steve Jobs handed over the mantle, to $4.6 trillion (£3.4tn) during this final month. That's an increase of £3.1 trillion for the brand behind the iPhone.

In the final weeks of his tenure, Tim Cook introduced a top-to-bottom reimagining of AI assistant Siri, pledged that the next software updates would bolster performance on some of its oldest iPhones, and debuted a new Mac mini with a speedy new chipset. The 65-year-old CEO purportedly described the roadmap of upcoming products as "amazing" last year, teasing: "Some of it you’ll see soon, some of it will come later, but there’s a lot to see."

Some of these announcements will now fall to incoming CEO John Ternus, who takes the spotlight at the Apple Event scheduled for September 9, 2026.

If the Californian behemoth sticks with its usual schedule, that's when we'll get a glimpse of the next iPhone — the product that single-handedly brings in 49.6% of Apple's quarterly revenue.

Until now, John Ternus has served as Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering.

That's a stark difference in background to his predecessor, who made his name as Steve Jobs' operations guru. While Mr Jobs is credited as the product visionary, Mr Cook was the executive who made sure Apple could efficiently manufacture, distribute worldwide, and sell its products at unprecedented scale.

It's noteworthy that Mr Ternus — who started his career as part of Apple’s secretive product design team in 2001, just three years after Tim Cook was poached from Compaq to fix a struggling supply chain — will be the one to introduce the successor to the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air, and something completely new.

Yes, if whispers from inside the secretive Californian firm are to be believed, John Ternus will unveil the first foldable iPhone during the September 9 showcase.

With the launch of the first-generation Google Pixel Fold in May 2023, Apple became the only major smartphone manufacturer without a foldable option.

Since Samsung introduced the first-ever foldable in 2019, which sold a modest 500,000 devices globally, the category has become increasingly popular.

Market intelligence firm IDC estimates that foldables have skyrocketed from a few hundreds of thousands of early adopters with the launch of the Galaxy Fold back in 2019 to some 23 million foldables sold every year. That's a 50x increase in annual shipments in just seven years.

Behind the scenes, rumours suggest Apple has been toiling away on its first foldable for years.

Apple is nonplussed about being the first to market with a new form-factor or product category. CEO Tim Cook explained the core product strategy in a television interview with Charlie Rose back in 2014: "The philosophy's always been to be the best, not the first.

"If you look back in time at Apple, the iPod. The iPod was not the first MP3 player... The iPhone was not the first smartphone... And then if you look at iPad, tablets were shipping a decade before."

Samsung has a seven-year head start on the foldable category. With its latest launch, the South Korean firm introduced three different flavours of foldable, including a new ultra-wide Galaxy Z Fold 8, a taller productivity-focused Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, and the flip phone-style Galaxy Z Flip 8. Meanwhile, Google just released the third generation of its foldable Android handset, the first to offer a water-resistant design.

Motorola, Huawei, Honor, Xiaomi... there's a long list of other brands that offer smartphones that offer a tablet-like experience when unfolded. Apple will hope that — like with AirPods, iPhone, iPad, and iPod before it — taking its time to quietly work out the kinks behind closed doors will result in another blockbuster hit.

In his previous role as Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, John Ternus will have likely spearheaded the team that has been living and breathing every minuscule detail of a foldable iPhone to ensure that it can compete with its counterparts from Samsung, Google, and Motorola, despite the head start.

With his decision to hand over to his successor before the biggest event in its calendar — and with a brand-new twist on its bestselling iPhone waiting in the wings, Tim Cook has done everything in his power to ensure that John Ternus starts his tenure with a bang.

To step away now, Tim Cook has arguably shown himself to be as selfless as he was ruthlessly efficient during his 15 years running one of the biggest technology companies on the planet.

As Mr Cook reflected on his time as Chief Executive: "I love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people who have been unwavering in their dedication to enriching the lives of our customers and creating the best products and services in the world.

"John Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honour. He is a visionary whose contributions to Apple over 25 years are already too numerous to count, and he is without question the right person to lead Apple into the future."