John Ternus wants Apple to launch more products faster in major company overhaul

Apple CEO John Ternus is reportedly preparing a major overhaul of how the company develops and launches products, with plans to move faster, experiment more and reduce the layers of management separating engineers from senior executives.

The changes would represent one of the clearest signs yet of how Ternus intends to put his own stamp on Apple after succeeding Tim Cook as CEO on September 1.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Ternus wants Apple to release more products at a faster pace and become more experimental as it searches for new areas of growth.

One of the ideas under consideration is a shake-up of Apple’s familiar product release calendar.

Rather than concentrating major launches around traditional spring and fall windows, Apple could spread more product introductions throughout the year.

That would mark a notable change for a company whose annual schedule has become highly predictable. New iPhones and Apple Watches typically arrive in September, while Macs, iPads and other products are often grouped around spring and October launch periods.

Ternus is also reportedly pushing Apple toward a stronger engineering focus.

The company is considering eliminating some middle-management positions in an effort to reduce the number of organizational layers between engineers building products and the senior executives making decisions.

The aim would be to allow decisions to be made more quickly and give engineering teams a more direct route to Apple’s leadership.

The reported changes fit closely with Ternus’s background. Before becoming CEO, he spent years leading Apple’s hardware engineering organization and played a central role in the development of products including the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple silicon transition.

He also took responsibility for Apple’s design teams before succeeding Cook, giving him oversight of both the engineering and design organizations responsible for developing the company’s hardware.

Cost cutting is another part of the overhaul.

Bloomberg reports that efforts are underway to make Apple leaner, while Ternus is also looking for new sources of revenue and ways to generate more money from products Apple already sells.

Exactly what those efforts could mean for customers isn’t yet clear, and Apple hasn’t commented publicly on the reported plans.

The push for new revenue comes as Apple looks beyond the iPhone for its next major areas of growth.

The company is already developing several new product categories, including smart glasses, AirPods with cameras and new smart home devices, while continuing work on future Vision products.

Apple’s first smart glasses are currently expected in 2027, potentially giving Ternus one of his first opportunities as CEO to establish an entirely new Apple product category.

Ternus has already demonstrated a willingness to reconsider Apple’s product roadmap.

Earlier this year, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple dramatically scaled back its Vision product plans in a change approved by Ternus, leaving smart glasses as a much greater priority for the company.

Bloomberg has separately reported that Apple is experimenting with several different approaches to a future Vision Pro successor, although the project could still be canceled as resources move toward smart glasses.

Apple is currently considering several designs for a completely revamped Vision Pro, including concepts aimed at making the headset substantially lighter.

The latest report suggests those individual product decisions are part of a much broader rethink of how Apple operates.

Cook’s tenure was defined by enormous growth in Apple’s scale, profitability and services business, alongside a highly structured annual product cycle. Ternus appears to be considering a different emphasis, with engineering, faster decision-making and a broader stream of product launches taking a more prominent role.

Any organizational overhaul at a company the size of Apple is likely to take time, and the ideas under discussion could change before they are implemented.

But less than a month after taking over as CEO, the early signs suggest Ternus isn’t planning to simply maintain the company he inherited.