Ternus, who will take over as Apple CEO on Sept. 1, faces an immediate test with Apple’s fall product launch and new AI-powered Siri.

  • Ternus will need to strengthen Apple’s leadership and is likely to rely heavily on COO Sabih Khan, CFO Kevan Parekh, and services chief Eddy Cue, Bloomberg reported.
  • Apple stock gained 3.6% this month, after a 6.8% gain in July.
  • Apple hiked the subscription price of Apple TV and Apple One in the U.S. last week.

John Ternus will take over as Apple Inc.’s CEO on Tuesday with little time to settle into the job before facing a series of immediate and longer-term challenges, from the company’s fall product launch and AI ambitions to an impending overhaul of its senior leadership ranks.

The transition comes amid a healthy run for AAPL stock. Shares are up 3.6% in August, versus the S&P 500’s 0.3% drop, and are on track to close higher for a second straight month. Apple’s stock had plunged from an all-time high on July 31 after the iPhone maker issued an underwhelming outlook, while its quarterly results also showed weakness in the services business.


Ternus’ first major test will come on Sept. 9, when he hosts Apple’s iPhone launch featuring the first foldable iPhone. The device is part of a broader product roadmap Ternus helped oversee as hardware chief, including a smart display and future products such as camera-equipped AirPods, smart glasses and a home security system — projects whose success will partly depend on Apple’s ability to improve its AI capabilities.

The most pressing technology will be the planned September rollout of a revamped Siri AI. Apple has struggled to develop its own AI models and is now using Google’s Gemini technology as the foundation for Siri. Ternus will need to make the new system useful enough to overcome Siri’s poor reputation while finding a way to eventually monetize the costly AI service.

Ternus Needs To Resurrect Top Brass Immediately

At the same time, Ternus will have to lean heavily on executives with more experience outside hardware. A new Bloomberg report highlighted expanded roles for COO Sabih Khan, CFO Kevan Parekh, and services chief Eddy Cue, with Tim Cook remaining executive chairman and continuing to handle Apple’s relationships with President Donald Trump and the Chinese government.

In the immediate term, the biggest task will be rebuilding Apple’s leadership, according to the Bloomberg report. About half of its leadership team could leave over the next few years, with hardware chief Johny Srouji, marketing chief Greg Joswiak and retail and people chief Deirdre O’Brien among those expected to eventually depart. 

Ternus will need to build successors across hardware, marketing, retail and HR, while also rebuilding Apple’s depleted design organization, according to the report.

Retail, Analyst View On AAPL

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for AAPL peaked in the first week and has dipped since then. As of the last check, the sentiment was ‘extremely bearish.’ The message volume for the ticker dipped over the past month, but the watcher count increased 0.5%.

“$AAPL this always go up regardless of fundamentals. Add on dips, never sell,” said a trader, even as others expressed skepticism. “$AAPL Foldable iPhones will single-handedly fold your portfolio,” said another trader.

Analysts remain divided. Twenty-five out of 44 recommend ‘Buy’ or higher on the stock, 14 recommend ‘Hold,’ and five rate it ‘Sell’ or lower, according to Koyfin. Their average price target of $324.45 implies a mere 1.5% upside from the stock’s closing price on Friday.

AAPL stock is up 18% year to date compared to the 4.7% rise in Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS), which tracks the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of equities.

Recent Catalysts From AAPL

Apple on Friday increased the monthly price of its streaming service Apple TV to $14.99, or $119 per year, from $12.99 per month or $99 per year previously.

Apple also increased the price of Apple One, a bundle subscription that includes Apple TV, iCloud storage, Apple Music and other services, to $21.95 from $19.95.

Apple had already begun hiking prices on some gadgets, with Macs and iPads seeing increases in June as the company passed on surging memory and storage costs. 

The iPhone 18 lineup is also expected to be significantly more expensive at launch, with some estimates pointing to a $100-$200 increase for the Pro models. 

Meanwhile, The Information reported that OpenAI had bought tens of thousands of Apple Mac mini and Mac Studio devices over the past few months, presumably for reinforcement learning and agentic workloads, contributing to the shortages.

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