Greg Lippert on Ternus as Apple CEO: What the analysts are saying - 'Steve Jobs often said figuring out when to say no is more important than saying yes. I believe they were going down the dev path of a car and at some point realized that it was not a good fit for a variety of reasons. I’m sure they leveraged the tech elsewhere as appropriate.'
on Apple's John Ternus gave Penn Engineering's 2024 commencement address - 'I really like the distinction he made in that speech between intelligence and knowledge, telling students (I’m paraphrasing) to accept that they may be as intelligent as the smartest people in the room, but to also absolutely avoid thinking that they know more than everyone else.'
on Ternus as Apple CEO: What the analysts are saying - 'Dan: Of course your “Rim Cook” was due to “fat fingers”, esp since the R key is right next to the T. I just thought it was funny, just like Trump’s Tim Apple. However, your response that Apple’s AI didn’t autocorrect your obvious mistake is even funnier, and worthy of an upvote. Re the Apple Car: I think you and Gregg are both right, just dependent on perspective. Because of Apple Corporate’s secrecy policy of NOT announcing publicly what they are working on, technically they didn’t cancel their Car Project as officially it never existed (Gregg’s perspective). But of course they were, unofficially, working on a car and had made many key hires and were testing aspects/prototypes because they really did obtain that license you mentioned from the state of California.'
on Horace Dediu imagines Apple after John Ternus - 'My question: Can Ternus bring the same kind of disciplined performance to SOFTWARE engineering that he brought to Hardware engineering?'
on Premarket: Apple is red - 'I think what happens with the market today with Apple, barring any major outside influences, will be a referendum on the CEO change. I BELIEVE that the more people think about it, the better it will be for aapl.'
on Horace Dediu imagines Apple after John Ternus - 'Apple’s P/E ratio is now below the average of the Fab Five. The markets have spoken. Don’t shoot the messenger.'
on Premarket: Apple is red - 'Index futures are green on this Tuesday morning and the daybreak following the announcement of a CEO transition at Apple. The iPhone maker is off $1.85 at $271.20 after rising $2.82 on Monday. IBM is up $1.23 at $254.94 pre-market. Cisco Systems, which gained $1.46 on Monday to finish at $87.71 is up a modest $0.06 before the bell. Morgan Stanley, which is up 5.28% over the past week and 7.42% year-to-date, gained $1.88 to close at $190.70 yesterday and is in the green $0.28 pre-market. Let’s see where morning tradings takes prices…'
on Ternus as Apple CEO: What the analysts are saying - '”I can’t quite see smart glasses becoming an Apple product.” I don’t either. The “weird” quotient is just to high, no matter how useful they may be.'
on Ben Thompson: Thoughts on Tim Cook's tenure as Apple CEO - '“…I can’t think of a greater non-founder CEO. Can you?” Well, every reader of this blog is hoping it will be John Ternus 🙂 And my guess is Tim Cook is also hoping to be eclipsed by Ternus. Time will tell.'
on Ternus as Apple CEO: What the analysts are saying - 'Bart, you reminded me of the hypocrisy of firing Tony Blevins for a harmless, spontaneous, joke about breasts, while groveling to the criminal in the Whitehouse. (Which autocorrected to whitehorse.) Which reminds me of Cook’s record on AI, I hardly ever use Siri, and my wife just turned off autocorrect. Steve Jobs talked to Siri. Autocorrect was better 2 years ago.'
on Morgan Stanley: The March quarter results may reset the Apple narrative - 'I’ve (loosely) pegged eps at $2.02, but I’m starting to think that’s going to be $.02-$.04 light. This is going to be an awesome quarter.'
on Ternus as Apple CEO: What the analysts are saying - 'Lest we forget, another person pushed out of Apple was, at the time, a key supply chain negotiator, Tony Blevins, who’s self-inflicted faux pas got himself pushed out. “Longtime Apple VP of Procurement, Tony Blevins, was forced out in September 2022 after 22 years following a viral TikTok video. Known as “the Blevinator,” Blevins was a key cost-cutter who negotiated with suppliers. He appeared in a “What do you do for a living?” video, making a vulgar joke about his career.” At that time, Sept. 2022, Apple’s gross margins were, per the Q4 2022 10Q, 42.3%. For all of FY2022, Gross margins were 43.3% with Products at 36.3% Services at 71.7% In FY2025 Gross Margins were 46.9% Products at 36.8% Services at 75.4% That’s an overall gain of 3.6% points, most due to Services and slight gains in Products, pretty good considering how supply chain dynamics have been over the past 2 years considering trade wars and geopolitical upheaval. Q1 2026 Gross Margins were 48.2% Products at 40.7% Services at 76.5% Comparing Q1 to FY2022, gross margins increased 4.9% points, this time with Products increasing 4.4% points in its own, and Services up 4.8% points. Seems after Apple lost this key negotiator, whomever stepped into that job has done it just as well, if not better. Credit is also due to design and engineering teams working on making products more advanced AND cheaper to make, holding increased prices to as little as possible, and making Apple record margins. Spreading manufacturing to India probably has a key role as well. Now realistically, the AI memory crunch should have some measurable impact on Apple’s gross margins, but this will be 4-6-8 quarters of impact before it settles down. As many have noted, Apple still has lots of levers to pull to mitigate these supply chain cost increases.'
on Ternus as Apple CEO: What the analysts are saying - 'Such ‘perspicacity’ Bart… I can’t quite see smart glasses becoming an Apple product. I suspect Meta’s glasses are a bit like Bitcoin, mainly used for nefarious purposes. And as you note Apple is not Meta.'
