Tim Cook walked onto the stage at WWDC 2026 on June 8 to a standing ovation from thousands of Apple employees and developers. He joked about the smartphones in the crowd, then said goodbye. Leading Apple, he told the room, had been “the honour of a lifetime.” It was his last keynote as chief executive.
The handover was scheduled for September 1, 2026, when Cook would become executive chairman. His successor, John Ternus, was then senior vice president of hardware engineering. Ternus stayed in the background during the main presentation, but he was placed prominently beside Cook through the conference’s other events, GlobalBiz Outlook reported.
Ternus joined Apple’s product design team in 2001, became vice president of hardware engineering in 2013 and took the senior vice president job in 2021, DW reported when the succession was announced. He joins Apple’s board on September 1. “Having spent almost my entire career at Apple, I have been lucky to have worked under Steve Jobs and to have had Tim Cook as my mentor,” he said then.
A new name for Siri
The product news was just as big. Apple rebranded its assistant as “Siri AI” and gave it conversational skills, awareness of personal context and its own app, which keeps a history of past conversations. Crypto Briefing said the assistant can also read what is on screen and draw on apps, messages and documents to shape its answers.
It is built on Apple Intelligence, the company’s on-device framework, and Apple said it would do as much processing as possible on the device rather than on remote servers. GlobalBiz Outlook added that Apple had announced earlier in the year that it would use Apple Foundation Models powered by Google’s Gemini technology and cloud infrastructure.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, used the keynote to take a swipe at “AI for the sake of AI.” Technology, he argued, should solve real user needs. Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, said Apple had answered doubts about its AI roadmap but now has to show that its privacy-first approach produces a better experience than rivals offer.
Not everyone gets the assistant at once. A developer preview comes first, with a public beta expected later in 2026 on supported English-language devices. European Union users will wait longer: Apple said its talks with European regulators had not produced a framework under which Siri AI could run while safely supporting alternative virtual assistants.
Child safety, and a protest outside
Apple also widened its “Ask” feature for parents. Under the update, children will need a parent’s approval before communicating with unknown contacts. Before the keynote, demonstrators gathered outside Apple Park to press the company over AI-generated deepfake apps and child exploitation content.
Cook took over from Steve Jobs in August 2011. Under him, Apple grew to a market valuation of approximately $4 trillion and added the Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Silicon and the Vision Pro headset. Ternus was due to inherit that company in the middle of an AI overhaul.
Sources
- Apple unveils Siri AI makeover as Tim Cook prepares to step down
- Apple Unveils AI-Powered Siri at WWDC 2026 as Tim Cook Delivers Emotional Farewell
- Tim Cook to step down as Apple CEO, John Ternus to take over
