Tim Cook Is Out And John Ternus Is In As Apple CEO - Whats Next For Apple? (Apple Bitz XL, Ep. 375)

All right, everybody, so you've probably heard the news by now, but the big news this week was that Tim Cook is officially stepping down as CEO, John Ternus to replace him. I've got a special guest, Lance Yulanoff, to dig, dive deep, and we talk about all the different angles, the nuance. This is a really great and fun conversation, so you know what time it is. Let's get to the show. what's up everybody welcome to the show it's the apple bits excel brian tall here your host doing the most for everything good and bad inside the world of apple we are at episode 375 so yes we should hit 400 by the end of this year which is pretty incredible but you know what i just want to jump right into it because this is such a great, it was about an hour-long conversation with my buddy Lance Ulanoff, and we are going to give you every angle possible about Tim Cook stepping down, what it means now, what it means for the future, what challenges lie ahead, and what does Apple need to do for this to be a success. So I'm just going to stop talking. Let's just jump right into it. All right, everybody. So to get to the big news of the week, the story of the week, and probably the story of the year for Apple. Brought in my good friend, Lance Ulanoff, editor at large for TechRadar. Lance, welcome back. Thanks for hanging out, buddy. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Ooh, always. I mean, we always have some nice juicy conversations. So look, I mean, this is obviously something that we expected. We didn't know when exactly Tim Cook would be stepping down as CEO, but most of us thought probably this year. Although in all interviews, he kind of intimated, nah, it's not going to happen anytime soon. But when you get the news and the reality actually happens, and of course, we know that he'll be stepping down in September 1 of this year. So there will be a transition going on behind the scenes. But for all intents and purposes, John Ternus, currently as the Senior VP of Hardware Engineering, will be taking over and stepping up as CEO. What were your first thoughts, maybe your gut reaction to what you heard? I got to be honest with you. It's so funny. I was home and I'm outside dragging two large garbage pails to the curb. And I get a call from a network. Can you come on and talk about Tim Cook stepping down? I'm like, I'm sorry, what? Yeah, like now, can you come on now? So that was how I heard. And obviously, it's been in my head for a long time. I saw him at the 50th anniversary, and I actually got to talk to him a little bit. And it was more like – it wasn't like a hard-hitting interview. It was kind of like – it was like a chat among friends, and I was sort of – I was trying to get the temperature of where his headspace was at. And he just seemed like really happy, content. And I thought, all right, this is – he's in his good place, and he's not going anywhere. And every conversation that I read and saw that he had in that time right after was like, you know, I'll know when to go when, you know, when something tells me it's time. And so I was caught a little off guard, even though the selection of the person, his age, you know, he's 65 and you can say, all right, maybe this all makes sense. It still caught me by surprise. So I was it took me a hot second to digest the news. but it ultimately makes a lot of sense. Yeah, you know what? You make a good point because this news was dropped on a Monday, I think around 1.30 p.m. in the middle of the day. Normally, you'll get news in the morning because they want that news cycle to carry over. Maybe they strategically put it at that time so then there would be talking pieces for really the next morning for people to really get into. Of course, with internet and broadcast and 24-hour news cycle, it will get out. But I did think that 1.30 p.m. time, it's funny you say that because I was just editing a video and then all of a sudden someone told me. It's not like we're just doing our normal Monday week stuff. So it was a little bit of a surprise in that way. You do talk about how this totally makes sense. And look, we've heard the rumblings. We've seen how even just from a public-facing standpoint, Apple has continued to elevate John Ternus and include him more. And arguably, in some of these keynotes, you know, specifically when they announced some of the Macs, he was a majority of those keynotes or those presentations. I remember even when AirPods Pro 2 got the hearing aid feature, right, and they offered him up in the interview. I thought it was interesting, you know, different times they give different outlets and creators access. and at the time he wasn't positioned as you know the next heir at that moment but it was interesting when you look back at it clearly they were using that to kind of just train him and get more used to the idea of these types of interviews and because he was inevitably going to be that person but from all my interaction with John Ternus a very likable person just just a nice kind of tone friendly but also really smart really close to the product someone that you can actually ask specific product questions details how it came to be the thinking behind it and you actually get real answers and i think that's for us we like that there's nothing wrong about tim cook's role but tim cook was not nearly as intimately close to the actual right building of these products and And I think that's what a lot of people missed. And I also think that John Ternus is in a really unique position because he's lived through the Steve Jobs era at Apple. He's lived through the Tim Cook era at Apple. So he's been able to really see what has worked from both sides, what maybe hasn't worked from both sides. Take that institutional knowledge. This whole idea of someone hiring – Apple hiring a CEO outside of Apple, outside of their culture, didn't make sense. that's not who Apple is right when people throw around even names like maybe Tony Fidel right the quote father of the iPod who left on not the greatest of terms but also was a little bit of a rebel and misfit in his own way that wasn't going to happen but you know he was maybe a name that said oh someone who's worked on a successful product but John Ternus makes sense we've seen how the Mac lineup specifically the MacBook Pro MacBook Air and MacBook Neo has really transformed behind the scenes with him at the helm and johnny sruji um who's hardware of a senior vp of hardware or vp of hardware technologies and really the mastermind or brains behind apple silicon and that push for apple yeah so those two guys working in concert and just turn us from a harbor it just makes sense in the current place of where apple today and what they need to do yeah yeah no i agree with all that um and i you know i think back to the macbook neo launch um and i was in new york for that uh and it was a small event it was actually a really weird apple event because it was a different place um everything about was kind of strange but they had a tiny little stage and up on the stage was john john turnus not uh not only did we not see tim cook but he wasn't even on video like it was he just wasn't there it was like it should have been a really big actually and i did think about it quite a bit i even talked to people about it what's going on here but didn't really say like that's kind of the first big step that they're gonna like drop the other shoe very quickly after that um so that was a surprise uh but i should have paid closer attention to that um it was almost like you know one more last thing before we do this uh but you know i I have been talking to Turnus for a decade. And I wrote recently because I met him. If you remember the MacBook that was released, the 12-inch MacBook, which was a really interesting product on many levels. A lot of little engineering feats that had to happen there. Even the way they broke up the battery. John told me sort of in depth about the antenna and the speaker, the speaktena, they called it. and this thing that they had to do. And it was really the first moment where, one, I got to know this guy and also see his kind of wit, you know, that he was smart and a little funny and that he could see how things would be interesting to other people, a good storyteller. And it was just, you know, as you said, you really understood the technology at the core of all this. and you know a lot of times when you Apple is very careful about who they let you talk to and who they let speak and so sometimes you get these sort of sanitized versions of things and Turnus is very interesting because he's able to deliver two things at once. The Apple polished version of something but also the gritty details and somehow makes a perfect little package of that And that's something that skill he's actually had, I think, for a long time. As you said, he's been with the company based on his LinkedIn, assuming that that is accurate. He's had two jobs. One, he was an engineer for this small place that I really didn't recognize. And then he came to Apple in like 2000. Yep, 2001. And so, right. So he's really the majority of his career has been with Apple. That makes him a product of Apple. And when you talk to him, that really comes across that he is Apple through and through. He loves the place. He gets the place. He understands the decisions it makes. He's a booster for it, but also knows how to sort of propel the ideas and the innovation forward. I mean, he's quite different at a number of levels than Tim Cook. I mean, there are things that there's no sense that he really is a supply chain maverick. Tim Cook, genius at that stuff. That's why he was fired. He made, in some ways, maybe even more so than others, he made the iPhone possible. He made the iPod possible, delivering at scale, at global scale. And so that's now part of the company. And maybe that's why you don't have to have that in the CEO position anymore because it's just part of how the company works. And so attorneys can lean into that while still like sort of pushing on the innovation side. I mean, as you can tell, I'm kind of amped up about this change because I think it portends some really exciting stuff coming down the pike. Yeah, you know what? we can talk about a lot of different things. So let's kind of jump on this angle. And I'm glad you touched on this. You know, I think, and I alluded to it, right, John Ternus has been here during the Steve Jobs era and the Tim Cook era. And I, because, you know, the Steve Jobs era was a unique time in technology and how things were growing, just from a technology standpoint, purely from there. Also, Steve Jobs was a genius and a savant and a one of one, right? And so then you have all these breakthrough products, right? The iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, I mean, the MacBook Air even, right? Some things like that, right? That maybe people don't talk about as much. and then tim cook comes in and i always find it interesting because you see these comments online like tim cook ruined apple apple's not innovative and my response to that has always been apple is still innovative they may not arguably feel as innovative as they were before i think that's a fair assessment right because of the different times but let's let's go down the list and give the man a little bit of credit all right first of all from a financial standpoint you talk about his master of the supply chain. Well, we talk about where Apple is today. There's roughly over 2.5 billion Apple devices in the market, an ecosystem that is stronger than ever. When Tim Cook took over Apple, I believe based on what is out there reporting-wise, market share of Apple is $350 billion. Today, they're nearly $4 trillion in market share. That's an incredible feat. They are averaging roughly $400 billion in revenue every year. So that was more than their market share. So that's sure. Those are great numbers. But let's talk about products really quickly that came out under Tim Cook's reign. And maybe some of that was an overlap of what the teams and it goes beyond the CEO. But when I look at Tim Cook, I have to say this happened during his watch. the AirPods really transformed Apple into an actual audio player in the space. Sure, they had the hi-fi speaker, they've had the wired ear pods, but nothing that was transformed. Those are the number one wireless-selling earbuds on planet Earth. You talk about the Apple Watch, which took time to grow and evolve and figure itself out, and Tim Cook definitely would talk and lean in on the Apple Watch. That has to be looked at as one of his things, one of those things that came during his time at Apple. Also, he was a part of the Apple Silicon transformation that has completely transformed the industry and elevated Apple from a processing standpoint to, I mean, just places we've never seen before. And even today, the stuff is so much more overpowered and they continue to push that. We also have just Apple services and what that's done for Apple. I can't, if I'm missing something that sticks out in your mind, please jump ahead. But Those are highlights that you have to give credit for Apple and Tim Cook. And let's also throw in diverse – having the vision to not say we're making one iPhone model, but we now sell five, technically six different iPhone models at once at every level, at every price point, master of the supply chain, using other components. And because Apple Silicon is so good, you can really lean into that. If they didn't have Apple Silicon, maybe that doesn't happen as much because some of these low-run phones can't perform as well. So, yeah, Tim Cook's even – from a hardware standpoint, the MacBook Neo needed certain things. But the pricing of the MacBook Neo and the use of components, that's a Tim Cook kind of thing too. He definitely had a role to play. So I think – and the MacBook Neo, let's throw that in there as well. Incredible. Yeah, honestly. Absolutely. So I'm just going down to listen. And I know you're nodding, but Tim Cook deserves credit as well. And I give Tim massive credit for what he's done with the company. And I think this is pretty standard that a company ends up being a reflection of its leadership, of its CEO. They turn. Maybe they don't pivot hard, but they steer in a direction. And I think Tim Cook was really smart about taking what was best of Apple under Steve Jobs and then using that as the foundation to grow something that probably even Steve Jobs never even imagined. I think services is such an interesting area because it such a melding of what great about Apple the ecosystem and what really great about Tim Cook recognizing the potential of a business like that You have to have a business mind to understand that Annuities you know that once you realize that you can get people to pay every month for services that you can just sort of incrementally build upon and know that that revenue is going to continue to come in and grow as all you have to do is sell more products and they'll be tied into it. And that is their fastest growing sector. It has become a really important part of the business mix. And I don't think anybody could have foreseen that beforehand. I do also agree with you that Apple Silicon, which sometimes it's such a foundational thing that I sometimes forgot about it, but it is such an important part of, you realize the risk of saying, you know what, We're going to walk away from Intel. And within two years, every single one of our systems will be on Apple Silicon. And I actually doubted it. I was like, come on. I think when I stopped doubting is when I tested the MacBook Air with the M1 chip. And I was like, what is this? What have they done here? this is this is so over delivering at every level and then i kind of knew oh wow because quite honestly a lot of sort of mobile level you know what intel was supposed to deliver to us which they kept promising you know mobile ready chips that would give us power and battery life and they just couldn't do it could not do it uh i think qualcomm deserves some credit for maybe sort of like being the sort of canary in the coal mine saying, hey, you know what, this is actually possible. But Apple having the strength and the power and the team to actually pull it off and the products, because, you know, for Qualcomm, it's like wrangling cats, right? They're working with the sort of Windows ecosystem and all of these different partners. And Apple, again, full stack control. But this is something that Tim Cook sees. I think he sees that and sees the opportunity. And I think that it's going to be worth talking, though, about massive credit, excellent, huge success. But there are things that Tim Cook has, one, not solved, or two, did not deliver in the way that I would have wanted. And I'll just say them and then we can talk about it. But Vision Pro and AI, these are two areas. And Envision Pro is a fantastic, exciting product that no one's buying. Agreed, 100%. I say it all the time. AI is the most important thing in the world right now. At every level, everyone cares about it. And Apple is not seen as the leader. And Apple is seen as somebody, a company that's under-delivered for 24 months and is under tremendous pressure now to show everyone in the way they have with so many other categories that Apple can do it better. And so when I've written about it, I've said that Ternus joins at a pivotal moment, in particular with AI. Everyone's going to be looking at him and saying, okay now, what do you got? So I love because in my video when I broke it down, those are the two things that I also said where he's dropped the ball, right? And so let's talk about AI for a second. You know, Apple intelligence has clearly completely dropped the ball. I mean, it's – I don't want to say it's embarrassing, but it's kind of embarrassing, right? Like what they have two years later. And it proved to us like what we thought after about six months that Apple was taken off guard by this. They weren't prepared for this push to AI. And the reality now is the only reason why they're going to arguably catch up is because they had to partner with Google Gemini, right? That will be – and Google Gemini is easily my favorite consumer-facing AI. And it will be interesting to see how Apple plugs it in. But a lot of the stuff that we will see, we've probably seen on Android already. And it's just going to have the, you know, oh, now our apps can talk to each other and understand each other better. um okay that's great i think that for apple to here's the there's so many thoughts going to my head right now there's two things there's two things when i think about ai so there's a recent this and this is kind of telling like you talk about that i do feel the tech world cares about ai more than the consumer world meaning someone like my mom and i think you'd agree and here here's some of the evidence there's this trade-in service called sell sell right and they do this report every year of like how often people will are saying we're going to stick on the platform we're not or we're looking to upgrade or jump ship they just put out a report maybe two weeks ago and 96.4 percent of apple iphone users plan to upgrade to an iphone again it was the largest the highest percentage that they've actually ever seen during a time where you and I are like, what the hell is going on with your AI? Because we know what's possible. We hope that Apple can do something better and more intuitive and kind of thinks like our brain, and they haven't yet. But the fact of the matter is that is a reflection of consumers and technophiles who, because of the power of the ecosystem that you and I talked about, the power of what Tim Cook and Apple have done. We're connecting all the dots, the devices, the services. It is, although they're making it easier, and I use air quotes, to switch over to another platform, the EU has kind of pushed that to make that possible. People still aren't switching over, which gives Apple, again, the power of the ecosystem a lot more leeway to try to figure it out knowing people aren't leaving, right? If everyone was jumping ship, then I think we'd actually see Apple really push harder, and they aren't. Yeah, and people have been asking that question. They've asked me that question for the last two years. Do people make buying decisions based on AI capabilities? And I've said consistently no. I didn't believe it in the beginning, and I don't believe it now. I firmly believe that people are using it as a tool, but they see it as something akin to Google search. And in fact, they're trading in Google search for chat GPT. They say, I chat now. And it doesn't matter what platform you are on because you can just do that. You can just access these tools. So switching is not the thing. I think that where people, where the rubber meets the road for Apple on the iPhone and AI is the interaction with Siri. right people do use siri on the phone and they find that you know it seems limited oh i guess it has to hand that off to chat gpt oh i guess that you know like they're like why that like feels like you just like if it keeps throwing the ball elsewhere instead of saying don't worry i got you i'll carry you through um and i think that's that's where consumers may feel it um but i kind of agree with you i think that we're we're obsessed with it a little bit um But something you said is really interesting. You said that they were caught a little off guard. And I remember quite clearly in the mid-90s when Windows 95 first shipped. And it shipped without a browser. Like it didn't have Internet Explorer. That came with the Plus Pack. Why? because Microsoft was caught a little off guard by the internet by like this revolution that was happening and they just hadn't really thought that it needed to be they didn't realize that the world was going to switch to where the platform was going to be less important than the internet the browser was the interface I remember the first time that Bill Gates sort of had to admit that and say that was the fact and that's what they were working toward So similarly now, I think that Apple kind of, yeah, sure, well put, Apple intelligence, but they didn't think that AI would move to the center of the conversation, just be part of it. But it has moved to the center. It has moved to sort of even the workplace center where people are using it to get real work done. And it's something that has to be addressed now. and maybe they could sort of soft pedal it in the beginning and sort of be like, yeah, well, you're going to get some of it now. You'll get some of it later. And I don't think they – it's almost like they didn't quite take it seriously. And so just in the way that Microsoft bought the tool necessary to make Internet Explorer, bought the platform, didn't make it from nothing, Apple is now forced to buy the foundational models from Google to build the thing that they promised they would do. But in the end, whatever we see, whatever Tim Cook and now John Turner sort of bring to us, I think it'll still be very much an Apple thing. It'll still feel like Apple because that's how Apple does things. I love that nugget of context you just dropped about Windows. That's a great little kind of connect the dots. And also, I appreciate the fact that we're old enough to remember those times. History in this space matters. And seeing some mistakes or some steps being taken that kind of repeat themselves in different ways from other companies is always fun to see. As you were talking about that, something popped up in my mind. And I kind of – I would argue the reason why consumers don't care about consumers, don't make a purchasing decision based on AI as much is because Apple has dropped the ball on Siri so much in AI that they don't expect more from their phone. If Apple delivered what Google Gemini does and did three, four years ago, I think people would expect more from their phones. I think the iPhone is such a major mainstream device that what is given to us is okay. And like you said, people realize Siri is like, ah, it's kind of limited. It's not that good. I'm just not going to use it anymore for X, Y, and Z. Like, they got used to that. Apple had the lead with Siri, with the iPhone 4S. They had it. And then I do remember at a time, you know, there were talks about what Siri was built on. And it just basically wasn't multimodal. It was just like a single request. It was a very simplified, quite honestly, assistant. I've literally written multiple stories called Siri's Brain Transplant going back like a decade. I'm not exaggerating. I've literally written these stories, and they keep being like, replace the brain, replace the brain. Imagine if humans got their brains replaced this often. I mean it's just – it's insane. They keep on doing it. But, you know, I'm sure you've heard the rumors about what Google is planning for sort of Android and Google-based, you know, Android-based phones where Gemini really starts to take over and becomes almost like an agentic phone. I don't know how well that's going to play, quite honestly. But, you know, Apple will very quickly because they'll have WWDC after Google I.O., they'll be playing catch up yet again, at least on sort of the messaging side. So it's going to be really interesting to see how far Apple goes. Apple is, I will say, in my opinion, Apple tends to be smarter about what consumers will expect in these realms. In that they don't take them too far because they understand ultimately these are devices that have to be humanistic. They have to connect with people. And, you know, Google and Android has always come from the programming side. It's gotten so much better. But its roots tend to be sort of on the sort of programmatic excitement, the developer nerdiness that sort of like, look what I did. What does that mean? so it'll just be really interesting to see again i keep and then of course bring it back to the the core topic this is the world that turner steps into yeah this is the maelstrom of just sort of like you know expectations versus reality competition versus what makes sense for the consumer all these things he has to deal with in real time and over a three-month period where suddenly by the time the iPhone 18 ships or he has to announce it, it's him. It's just him standing on stage. Tim Cook's being an executive chairman somewhere in the center of the big circle. Okay. So I want to go to the John Ternus kind of future stuff. And, but I do want to hit on something and this maybe speaks to how people aren't familiar. Like, you know, you talk about an agentic AI and I think a lot of times Apple is the one that educates the general consumer of what agentic AI is. And they'll just call it maybe like your friend. People have referred to agentic AI as an agent. And I want to explain to people, and this is really where I think, this is what I hope the iPhone can do. But really, we've started to see it. I was at the Galaxy, excuse me, S26 keynote, and they already showed this. But essentially, think of an app like Uber, where you normally punch in like, yeah, I'm here and I want to go here. And instead of even touching the app, I can talk to my phone and say, hey, Uber, pick me up at this address. I want to go to here. And you not touching the app ever, it does that, right? And Uber shows up, you get a notification. So that's the AI acting as an agent or your friend or your admin to do all the work for you. They talked about how they're going to be plugging it into something like Instacart. And basically, I can talk into my phone and say, I'd like a pint of vanilla ice cream, some strawberries, and some cereal. And because it can talk to those apps without you doing anything, that comes to your door. right that is powerful that is where people can understand and feel like oh this is a true assistant this is ai working for me google gemini and android is already starting to do that in small ways but it's it's not there yet and it requires a lot of apps to get access to an api and then have a certain level of polish which takes time even apple's going to get there but they're going to make sure it actually works, right? And so right now they're figuring out, but that's where I've been talking for a couple of years of that's where it gets exciting, but people can't wrap their heads around it right now, but that's where we're going, right? And so I just wanted to make that clear for people that were listening, like, what do you mean by an agentic phone? Now let's talk about John Ternus and the challenges he has. I think, you know, he comes in an interesting time, just like you said, and the Vision Pro is the Vision Pro. He recently basically made some public comments about it, how he says it's a great technology. It's still just the beginning of the road. And he said all the right things about it, which are true. And I still think the fact of the matter is, like you said, it's way too expensive. Like no matter how good that thing is, and it is incredible. It's no, I could not I love it but I could not recommend it to a single person I literally couldn at that point It like trying to get every consumer to buy a Ferrari Yes that an incredible car that can do incredible things go incredible speeds It's handling beauty. But it's a very small set of people who can afford it, who even need it. Obviously, what Apple is trying to do here is launch a completely new computing paradigm with spatial computing. and another way of saying sort of augmented reality because you're kind of pulling the inside and outside world together, the virtual and the real world together. And no headset that I've used does it better. I thought that Samsung's Galaxy AR, it's impressive, but it's not as good. I wished it were, but it was not. And it was less expensive, too. But to Apple's credit, no one's really talking about that Galaxy AR anymore. We're still talking about the Vision Pro. But this is a product, one of the most expensive consumer products that they ever delivered that consumers just went. Not even in my – I can't have a conversation. Talk to my family and say, hey, I'm buying – everybody's getting a Vision Pro. Also, I took a second mortgage on the house. I mean it's just not going to happen. But obviously, every conversation, every statement that Tim Cook has made about this, and now John Ternus was sort of saying similar things, is that this is sort of a framework for something else. This is everything we've built here we can now build upon and use and pick out pieces and build something lighter, like my glasses. And we know that Tim Cook remains very interested in AR, and I'm sure John Ternus is just as interested in that. So he is going to have to have an answer for what comes after the Vision Pro. I mean, he can't hang out there for another year and just go, yeah, we just threw another chip in it. It's still almost $4,000, but it's got an M7 now. That's not going to work. You know what's interesting about the Vision Pro, and who knows how this all plays out? Because I think, look, Apple, right when the Vision Pro came out, my first comments are they need to make a cheaper product. They need to go for some low-hanging fruit and just establish themselves in this wearable space. You wear glasses. So I know this is an intriguing space for you because you'd live with glasses every day. Not everyone wears glasses. And another nut to crack that we always talked about is how are you going to convince someone who doesn't wear glasses to wear glasses? Also, how do you convince someone who used to wear glasses that no longer wears glasses to wear glasses again? So that's always going to be a challenge. And it's going to be a long ways before we start seeing something. I do think that Apple is approaching this whole idea of like, okay, fine. We're going to make like an entry-level type glass thing, learn some things from it, maybe do better. Meta Ray-Ban has become a popular one. But I think something as simple, quite honestly, to me is if Apple puts the best video camera and photo camera in those glasses and it does everything else like listen to music and pull up a couple things. we'll see how much they price it at but even just saying we have the best camera on wearable glasses that you can shoot 4k 60 frames right just nice video that's equivalent to your iphone that might be enough to at least give them a little inroad but i kind of feel like the vision pro is something that we'll look at in 10 years that will lead to that next thing it almost reminds me this is not the same but that apple g4 cube that's behind me that was a product at the time that was way out there and it was like reaching in the future and pulling something and apple silicon has now really perfected what that was supposed to be and maybe the chip and some other hardware pieces are not in place but i almost feel like the vision pro and that was radically expensive at the time i think it was like over two thousand dollars something silly and stupid um i got it later on second hand because it's one of my favorite kind of like Apple pieces. It just reminds me of a cool time where they were trying stuff that didn't work all the time, but it was still really awesome. And maybe that's okay because we'll see the fruits of that labor 10 years from now. We don't know. Let's talk about one of the challenges that Ternus has. And I think the biggest thing is to have a breakthrough product for Apple, a new product that people actually rally around. Now, Tim Cook may not have necessarily had a air quotes breakthrough product because people perceive them a different way. But again, AirPods and Apple Watch from a hardware standpoint and silicon, that's a breakthrough. But for whatever reason, people don't look at him that way, and that's fine. But under Ternus's reign, this is kind of a fun thing to spitball. I have a few ideas, but I want to hear your ideas of where do you think is the actual opportunity from a product standpoint in these product categories that are thrown all over the place that turnus can kind of put his fingerprint on and be like okay that that was during my time because in a report you know apple had a little meeting with tim cook and turnus of the steve jobs theater and john turnus outright said this is a quote that was pulled from it was supposed to be private but of course bloomberg got their hands on it turnus said they have an incredible roadmap ahead of them and and he said And I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the most exciting time to be building products and services at Apple in my entire career. Now, he's supposed to say that, but he still said that, right? So let's spitball. Where can Ternus and Apple find that potential? We're not – potential breakthrough product space for you. I mean, look, obviously, I do think that the wearable area, glasses of some form, is very important. Even though there's a certain limitation because, as you said, not everyone wears glasses. Everyone can carry a smartphone. Not everyone will wear glasses. That's an unusual limitation that Apple, no matter what, enters into when they go in this space. But I do think it's very important because I think that Apple has an opportunity to do this better than it's been done so far. And I've seen some really good stuff. I mean, you know, the Ray-Ban displays are impressive. But I think Apple maybe can go further, possibly. but then after that what starts to happen is it's a lot of sort of turning points for known products I think the biggest area is the sort of flexible to foldable phone you know folding devices which is a really weird one because Samsung's had seven years they have done really well. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is, to my mind, one of, if not the best foldable on the market. It's just a beautiful device. The distance that they've traveled in seven years has been nothing short of extraordinary. I'm really, really impressed with what they've done. It's one of the few times I've sat in a product launch where event and when they showed us and announced the thinness of it, I gasped out loud. I was stunned. So Apple, but not a lot of people carry them yet. They're still not, again, something that everybody, and they tend to be more expensive. But Apple, we know Apple's going this direction and this will, you know, it's a product that relies heavily on engineering capabilities, right? right in Ternus' wheelhouse. If they do it in a way where we're like, oh my gosh, there's no crease. They've taken it to a place we didn't know was possible. That gets exciting. I don't know what, you know, I don't think they're not going to do TVs. They're not going to do cars. You know, they're just areas I don't think Apple's going to go into. And so I'm not sure of what – when you started talking about sort of breakthrough products that are connected to Ternus, I actually started to think about the MacBook Neo, which I've written a lot about. And it's a strange product in that you'll say, well, what's innovative about that? Well, it takes all of the things that you love about an Apple laptop, a MacBook, and puts them in a price that puts it within reach of virtually every consumer out there. And it's a real major shot across the bow for every Windows manufacturer and Chrome laptop company that could not seem to deliver that same level of quality at that price. You basically sort of have to, if you're going to get a $600 Windows laptop, you usually get something big and heavy and plastic. And I'm not even exaggerating. I've been to a lot of stores I've seen. If you want something kind of sexy and cool with some metal on it and lightweight and maybe even some decent battery life and performance, you're getting closer to $1,000 and probably $1,200. And that's nothing against all those Windows laptop manufacturers. It really isn't. It's something that maybe only Apple could do. I don't know. And that happened under – not only did it happen under Ternus' watchful eye, but Apple put Ternus out there in front to deliver that. So, yes, Tim Cook will always get credit, but some of the credit has to be handed to Ternus. I'm sure it's heavy, deep involvement with it. But after that, I don't know. I don't know. I just love – I love to be surprised. I pray and hope for it all the time. Please surprise me. It's why I'm in this business. So I have some thoughts. So yes, 100%. I mean, the Neo is – it's incredible for 599. And here's some perspective. You can now basically get a young person – and this might take a couple years to do – but into the Apple ecosystem, completely outfitted with a laptop, an iPhone 17e, and AirPods for just close to around $1,200. That was the price of a laptop before and nothing else. This is merely going to open up more people into the ecosystem over time. This is a play. the 17e now the macbook neo and airpods i mean i think those are kind of the three core pieces like the apple watch is great but it's not a core piece those are the three core pieces of the ecosystem that now you can basically get for 1200 that's pretty that's that's pretty incredible now you know when you think of the history of what apple used to be we talk about the apple premium the apple price the apple tax in addition to that you know we know that there's a memory and components and hard drive shortage industry-wise. I don't know if you saw this report, and again, the Neo is not a touchscreen, but the Microsoft Surface Pro laptops basically bumped up anywhere from $300 to $500. They had to increase the retail price on them because of the shortage. And we expect probably Apple knew this was coming and whatever deals they have. If the Neo stays at $599, which I'm pretty sure it will, for the next two years, that is incredible. I don't think they're going to sell. I know they're already struggling. Right, right. Yeah. But I said they're going to sell a boatload of them. I was not kidding. It has changed the perception of MacBooks. It is suddenly like it's like walking into a room and knowing that that door there, you can't go through that door because you can't afford to go through that door. And suddenly everyone I'm talking to is like, oh, that door is open now. Oh, so I don't have to stay in this room. I can go in there. My wife is somebody who's like – I've had multiple conversations with her about the MacBook Neo. She has been a lifelong Windows user. and and she's actually considering this switch because she knows that's an attractive laptop she's kind of interested in in she's heard stories about the ease of use on on the the apple side um but you know assume that you know that was going to be too expensive we're not going to go to that place uh and i think a lot of people now when they walk into best buy they're gonna be like you know they're not going to just like oh i can't stop really at the apple kiosk here that special space they built. They're going to lock in. They're going to lock in and it's going to be transformative. But whether or not Apple can keep prices at this point has a lot to do, I think, with how Tim Cook in particular has set them up on the supply side. What has he stockpiled? And how much foresight did he have? I mean, it's gotten much worse than anybody thought it would over the last nine months. But I'm sure that as soon as they saw the writing on the wall, he started making moves to ensure that they had this. But the other part is that it's an A18 Pro, right? Parts they had lying around. That helps quite a bit. And so, you know, it's just so canny, so smart. And I could go on and on about it. But that's also going to help Turnus in his early days. He gets to ride that a little bit, right? The success of that product, the good taste left in your mouth of that product and that good feeling that's going to carry on through, you know, right through WWDC, which is all about what's coming and the platforms and they'll tell us about Siri and hopefully show us real things. and months before another set of new products come, which should be the iPhone and maybe the Fold. So it's kind of a nice runway to have, a product runway to have to walk into then what could be some pretty exciting stuff in September, especially considering what Ternus said there, which could be hyperbole or could be real. I don't know. Well, I think it's nice that he can kind of go out with something that there is. look we don't know how much they're going to price this potential iphone foldable phone it's probably going to be expensive but i can tell you you know there is a segment of the apple fan base that will always buy what apple has that's at that high end that's new and then it tends to trickle down over time and the reality is there are a lot of people who have been complaining about uh i want to do more with my phone this is the answer for them quite honestly if they're willing to throw down for it this is the answer and i i've always heard of a lot of people like i'm not ready to buy a foldable yet, but I want to see what Apple does. And right, right, right. Apple has that cache, that polish. And even if it's not as thin as the Z Fold 7, which it probably won't be based on reports, I think the Z Fold 7 is 4.1 millimeters, which is ridiculous. And there's going to be 4.5. If it still feels nice in hand, if it still has kind of that passport book feel that I loved from the original Google Pixel fold, it's going to be compelling. I do want to touch upon two categories where I think Ternus could potentially during his time at Apple could have a breakthrough product and i know it sounds wacky and i know it sounds out there and it has been talked about but if there anyone who's going to make a robot or any type of robotics robotics personal and approachable and actual actually functional it has to be apple it's not going to be in video you know what i'm saying like i'm not asking for a humanoid robot yet there are steps that have to happen in society and culture to get us to a point to even accept a robot right in the home like we go to ces and i'm not talking about the humanoid androids yet not at all but is a pixar like pixar like arm with a smart screen home display that maybe animates almost organically and is fun and charming and who knows how much it's going to be but bringing some of that almost sci-fi unattainable stuff in an approachable fun charming way could that be something because for someone like you and i that have always been around this tech stuff and always like to be surprised i don't know if it's going to hit but there is something there to it that i think could be fun i could see it clipped to like at the edge of a counter on my kitchen or a table maybe it is cool and again i'm just saying if there's a company that can do it because we've seen these little ball like robots and i'm like what the hell like i'm not gonna use that what's what's the use in that apple does have to get apple intelligence right that's the biggest that's the craziest thing about this piece of the puzzle you're talking about wearables you're talking about robotics you're talking about the smart home apple has to get apple intelligence and siri right for those to even be successful products so yeah that's the big lynchman and then the other thing is i've been wanting them to get involved in the smart home for god knows how long and right it's taken so long and i've gone to other products that i'm more than happy and comfortable with um but there's something there about consumers and the apple kind of lean in on privacy and security and that can matter i don't know if they're going to be able to come up with a breakthrough product maybe it's a breakthrough ecosystem over time, right? For the smart home, again, pricing matters. But those are two areas where I actually feel like there's an opportunity for Apple to do something that hasn't been done before. Very similar. Okay, robotics is way out there. But at least the smart home, I think that is the most low-hanging fruit that they could possibly do. And I just recently bought this Aqara. I'm not sure if you're familiar or heard about this Aqara doorbell. It's called the is it the W200 or is it the U400? My brain's all over the place. But essentially, it's a smart door lock deadbolt that has ultra wideband. And why is that super cool? I literally, it's the only one out there right now. Normally, with a lot of these smart deadbolts, you have to do some sort of transactional thing. Touch your fingerprint, use a Bluetooth app, tap your phone 95 of the time it senses me walking towards it and it just unlocks the door and i've had groceries and things in my arms and i just knock the handle down and i walk in and it's so nice it is so nice but it's also a chinese-made security door lock right and i'm not trying to hate on that but i'm what i'm trying to point out is that there's a lot of people that do not want to get something like that because there's you know this whole idea of like what is china actually doing with our data and all this information and apple has the ability to be like oh hold on you've trusted us before you can trust us now and i think the smart home is a really interesting place that they didn't really pay attention to and that was actually one of the blind spots i think of tim cook's time they really should have leaned into it and they didn't you know and the nest the nest tony fidel's nest that was an apple product that should have been an apple product right well yeah you know the thing i've always appreciated about my my original nest um less so now that google has taken it over and yes i know the software but um the original nest just worked put on your wi-fi it just worked it was so it was so simple and yet smart and the design was both had a nod to the past but took you to the future. I was like, everything about that was right. Apple has been working on the smart home for it feels like a decade, and they have done it poorly at every turn. But they are not alone in this. No one seems to know, partly because it's not a strength for Apple because Apple likes to control the ecosystem. But in a smart home, no one has control of the ecosystem. That's why we have matter. But matter is not really fully yet delivered on the promise. But it is something that's truly needed because it's a disparate system, right? Everything is different. You may have one or two things that are on the same platform, but ultimately, you probably have five or six that are not. And this idea of scenes and things all working together, and I won't say the name of it because if I do it, it'll wake up. But Amazon's product is supposed to make that simple, and even it hasn't solved it. Or as I said to someone the other day, it solved something. Then someone else updated their software. It broke again. And now I'm going to have to go back and do it all over again. Apple was supposed to fix a lot of these things. And yet, its smart home solutions have always been very focused on a hub, which is not helpful. I kind of hate that they always do that. I had this message about if you don't update, you're going to lose access to stuff. because the hub's, I'm like, why? Why would any consumer ever want this message? So it is a big opportunity. The robotic interface, that thing that you're talking about, which we keep hearing rumors of, is kind of part of that because it's maybe a friendly interface to all of this. But consumers are kind of weird about screens that follow you as you move around. They're not necessarily, I've seen lots of robots, by the way, that do this. Jibo, I think it was Jibo, was a robot that had a cute face and it was very animated. It would look at you. It didn't roll around. It was fixed, but it would look and interact. It went nowhere. It died. A terrible death. And so I think that you haven't heard much about that lately. And I wonder if Apple is kind of trying to figure out, especially as they start to maybe put consumers in front of this product, do some internal tests and go, the reaction isn't exactly what we're expecting. Just because you call it cute doesn't mean people don't find it creepy. So robotics is a very big area. Its growth right now is totally tied to the AI revolution, which has enabled simulated training at scale that we never had before. It's creating all kinds of breakthroughs. Apple's not really heavily involved in that area. They're really not. And obviously, as you said, they haven't really solved the AI side yet either. And now they're going to rely on Gemini for Google, Gemini for the foundational models. So they won't really have control of this anyway. NVIDIA is in a better position for all of this, for being the leader in this space, because a lot of the robotic innovation you see is backed by NVIDIA chips and models. So I don't know that maybe it's something that Ternus might be like, you know, So everybody who comes in as CEO wants to put their fingerprints on the company. And maybe this becomes his thing, right? What if he sits in his first big, big exec meeting and says, robots? And they go, what? It can happen. And I would honestly, if it did, I would be thrilled because I am a massive robotics nerd. Massive. Been covering it forever. So I'm all for it, but it's a really tough hill to climb up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I always I just think of like, where where can Apple's polish make a difference? Right. It's always it's always that Apple polish that kind of sets some of these things apart over time, knowing that they're later to the market, knowing, you know, and again, it is a different time because people forget. Yes, even though Steve Jobs was an innovator, his products were also typically later to the market. He just found that nugget or those two or three things that really hit the essence of what we didn't even know were compelling or that we wanted from them that they were able to break through. Whether it was a technology like multi-touch on the iPhone, that was a game changer. That was a technology thing that was then brought to the consumer in an understandable, applicable way. It's that magic, the software, the hardware thing that maybe I'm hoping that we kind of lean into it. Here's the other thing that before we wrap up and talk about, I think from what I can tell, you and I agree that Ternus was the right call for this role. I do want to throw out this idea, and I'm not here to throw any bars because a lot of people in the comments were like, why not Craig Federighi? Why not Craig? And so my response to that is that, good Lord, Craig has tons of charms and riz and is an entertaining part of the keynotes, right? But I also have to say, under his watch, if we look at iOS over the past four years, it's been a mixed bag and it's been kind of disappointing. Not kind of. Not only are we talking about bugs and a lack of polish that we've, over the past specifically, arguably five, seven years, that it's just really been not as good. the move towards liquid glass although beautiful at times unreadable at other times right like a mixed bag of and i know they wanted to freshen things up and but i i don't i think it's some people love it some people don't love it but it's not generally like yes this was the right move right a lot of people like oh i how do you turn it off is what a lot of people ask me right out the gates and they still ask then also we have apple intelligence and so from that standpoint i'm not saying he's incompetent but to have a software guy lead apple doesn't feel right specifically at this point in time of what apple wants yeah so so i don't think that would have been the right move per se i think uh turnus has been the right move and i also actually really like the combination of turnus and keeping johnny sruji as now the senior vp of hardware and during that that that seems like a powerful combination for what it could potentially unlock in the next generation of apple yeah i i think that uh i think you're right um it is it is definitely the track record on under federigi's watch is maybe not as strong um although i think that the decision to go with Ternus also has to do with his hardware slash engineering background, which I think is going to benefit some of these future product challenges. Software can sort of fit inside any one of these things. And it is a big job. And there is the other way of looking at this is that if you elevate Federighi to CEO, you're relying on individuals controlling different parts of the stack, the software stack. And it may cause more problems than having somebody at the top who sees it all and knows that you constantly have to tie it all tightly, neatly together. And whatever you say about Federighi, I think he has done a good job of that, of keeping the ecosystem intact and growing as they add things onto it. They're always going to try things. Not everything's going to work. But I think that hardware doesn't work that way. You can have individual pieces of hardware. They're not built like pieces of a puzzle that snap together. Software is different. It has to connect. It has to have all these handshakes. It has to be part of a big, for Apple, part of a big world. And I think that's been Federighi's job, even more so because now the layers between him and sort of the AI stuff that they were building has sort of collapsed down. It's now really under his control. So I'm sure there are a lot of different factors, a lot of different reasons. But yes, you and I are in alignment. This seems to be the right choice. And it's also not just for his technical skills, but I think the way he sees the company. The conversations I had with him a decade ago and how he described the way Apple works, His understanding of it was so deep and so on point that in some ways he could have been a good candidate as CEO in 2015, as crazy as that sounds. He was that seasoned and that smart about things. So I just think he has all the right skills for this job. All right. That was a perfect way to wrap it up, Lance, without me actually asking for your final thoughts. that was just a nice little bow. That's how we roll. That's why I have you on this podcast. It's always great to have you. I should ask you more often, but I don't like to bug people too much. But when it's something big, I'm like, let's see what Lance is up to. So thank you so much for your thoughts and just everything that we talked about. It's always fun to talk to you, man. It's great. Oh, absolute pleasure. You know, I love chatting with you about this stuff. So I feel honored when you ask me. All right, Lance. Lance, can you tell people before you leave, maybe where they can find some of your work right now? Yeah, so techradar.com, of course. We have TikTok. I have a TikTok. Instagram, I'm on X. I'm on threads, blue sky. And occasionally, I'm on television. Yes, sir. Keep watching for that. Busy man. Okay, thanks so much, Lance. I'll see you at the next event, yeah? You will. You will. All right, take care. We'll talk soon, buddy. All right, thanks. Okay, so there you go. I hope you enjoyed it. There's not much more I can say, but we will continue to give you the latest around the happenings of Apple. Yes, WWDC is coming up in just a little bit over a month, but there's always rumors and leaks and all those things. So you know what time it is. Same bad time, same bad channel. We want to give a shout out to our Platinum Apple supporters on Patreon.com slash Brian Tong. That is the $100 level. Brandon Ledford, Gil Cabrera, Wesley Frater, Jared Lewis, Michael Gigliotti, Atari Koenigsegg, and Gregory Ford. Thank you all for your continued support. And thank you to all of you who make this podcast possible by supporting at every level. It starts at $2 per month, $5 was like a cup of coffee, the $10, the $25, or the $100 platinum Apple level. So that's going to do it for this episode. We'll talk to you soon. Take care and be safe. It's the Apple Bits XL, baby. Peace. Bye.