Let me first ask the indulgence of my colleague Nicole, who oversees our technology section and treats it as her cherished kingdom, while I venture briefly into her territory to write about Apple — that company which has worked its way into our daily lives more deeply than Pepsi-Cola.
Apple, after all, is no longer simply a technology company. It sits in our pockets, on our desks, in our photographs, messages, payments and personal archives. That is why its chief executives matter beyond quarterly earnings. Each has left a distinct imprint on the company’s digital memory.
Steve Jobs did not merely leave behind products. He left behind a mood. The iMac, iPod and iPhone embodied a stubborn idea: technology should feel simple even when the engineering behind it is anything but. Under Jobs, Apple became part of popular culture rather than merely another electronics manufacturer.
Then came Tim Cook, quieter, less theatrical and far more operational. His great strength was that he never tried to become Jobs. Under his leadership, Apple expanded from a collection of devices into an ecosystem: a watch on the wrist, AirPods in the ears, services on the phone and Apple-designed silicon inside the machines themselves. Cook’s signature was ubiquity. Apple became harder to separate from the rhythm of everyday life.
Now attention is turning to John Ternus, a figure shaped not by marketing mythology but by hardware engineering.
His name is increasingly associated with what could become one of Apple’s most consequential product transitions in years: the foldable era.
That makes the timing unusually symbolic. Apple has watched rivals experiment with folding screens, hinges, durability and awkward first-generation compromises. The company’s history suggests that arriving late does not necessarily trouble it. Apple has often preferred to let others prove there is a market, then enter only when it believes it can redefine the category.
If foldable devices become a defining chapter in Apple’s next generation, they could also become the first major layer of Ternus’s own digital legacy.
Jobs made technology personal. Cook made Apple omnipresent. Ternus may face a harder task: restoring something the company has seemed to possess less often in recent years — the power to genuinely surprise.
There is a neat irony in that.
Apple’s attempt to open a new chapter may begin with a device designed to fold.