Apple's New Chief Rejects Talk of AI Lag as Touchscreen Mac Signals Hardware Push

John Ternus, two months into his tenure as Apple's chief executive, has pushed back at the charge that the company missed the AI wave, telling Wired that he likes Apple's current position. The remarks return a central question for the AI industry — where models actually belong inside consumer products — to the agenda of a company that has so far kept its distance: its AI features arrived late, and the delayed Siri AI remains unavailable in the European Union.

Ternus took over on 1 September 2026, having joined the iPhone maker in 2001 and served most recently as senior vice president of hardware engineering. Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence in June 2024, presenting the package as what would make the iPhone 16 series a bestseller; when the handsets reached the market the software was not installed and arrived only with iOS 18.1, reaching EU users with iOS 18.4. The AI version of Siri slipped repeatedly and shipped only with iOS 27 — not in the EU, where Digital Markets Act requirements Apple has not met stand in the way.

Ternus frames restraint as deliberate. According to the German account of the Wired interview, he sees no end in itself in AI and would deploy it only where it adds real value, describing the models as very capable while saying the focus is on keeping products safe and reliable and user data protected. He characterised product development as a deeply human and personal affair. Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president for worldwide marketing, told Wired that Ternus has an innate feel for great products that cannot be learned. The contrast drawn is with Microsoft, which pursued an aggressive AI strategy in Windows 11, even adding AI to Notepad, and has since scaled features back; per Statcounter, roughly a quarter of PCs still run the predecessor system although official support has ended. Bloomberg reported last year that then-CEO Tim Cook told an internal meeting Apple was seldom first.

His tenure has also produced hardware: a foldable iPhone Duo in September 2026, a smart-home hub unveiled in New York in October, and an OLED MacBook Pro with a touchscreen and a returning illuminated Apple logo, shown in Los Angeles — abandoning a long-held position that laptops do not need touch. Speaking to Reuters on 1 November 2026, Ternus said the Mac had never been in better or stronger shape.

The next gate is regulatory rather than calendrical: Siri AI's absence from the EU turns on Apple meeting DMA obligations, and neither source sets a date for that.