Thursday 8th January 2026 - Updated reports of Apple considering an imminent and earlier than expected transition of power., AAPL sheds $3 in likely no connection at all, in spite of financial blogs trying to suggest a link.

More rumours, or any substance? Yahoo triggers a wave of speculation:

Firstly, a sweep of the news and headlines this week, and today:

There is widespread reporting that Apple is accelerating succession planning for Tim Cook and that John Ternus is (still) the lead internal candidate. There are broad reports and leaks that Cook has formally asked to go part time and adopt a “Chairman” role and is actively advocating Ternus as his chosen replacement.

Investing.com, syndicated via Yahoo, quoting the New York Times and Bloomberg, seem to have entered into some strange, recursive circle-jerk gen-AI reporting of one another’s reporting of the same news.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-john-ternus-leads-race-174210501.html

In spite of looking like AI-driven “journalism” at it’s worst through over-eager news LLMs behaving like teenagers running hot on too many hormones, let’s look at the core of this, which has substance (even if perhaps, no relevance right now).

I wrote about this on November 17th 2025, and that report is further on in this article.

What outlets are actually saying

• The Financial Times reported that Apple has intensified succession planning and that John Ternus, senior vice‑president of hardware engineering, is widely seen internally as the most likely successor to Tim Cook, but that no final decision has been made and no CEO change has been announced.
• Coverage summarised on Yahoo and others notes that Tim Cook, 65, has told senior Apple figures he wants to “lighten his responsibilities” and could “move to a chairman‑of‑the‑board role” if and when he steps down as CEO, with Ternus currently seen as the top contender to replace him.
• Multiple outlets have stepped up reports recently over late 2025 and notably now in early 2026 and re-surfacing the same core points:

Irrespective of the topicality of the news today, Apple is actively planning for post‑Cook leadership; Ternus is front‑runner; Cook favours an internal successor; and any CEO change is not expected before Apple’s late‑January 2026 earnings at the earliest.

Yahoo is carrying a piece today - whether fresh, or just a regurgitation of previous news.

It’s headlined along the lines of “Apple’s John Ternus leads race to succeed Tim Cook as CEO, NYT reports,” but it is a short pickup of New York Times/FT-style succession reporting, not a story saying Cook has asked to go part time or personally anointed Ternus in a Yahoo scoop.

Today’s Yahoo coverage:

• The relevant item is on Yahoo Finance’s Apple news feed, timestamped today, with the title “Apple’s John Ternus leads race to succeed Tim Cook as CEO, NYT reports.”

• The article states that John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, has emerged as the leading internal candidate to replace Tim Cook as CEO, summarising prior reporting that Apple is stepping up its CEO succession planning.

What it does and doesn’t say

• The Yahoo piece attributes the underlying claim about Ternus leading the race to other outlets (NYT/FT/Bloomberg style reporting), and frames it as “NYT reports”, i.e. it is aggregation, and should be treated with a light touch.

Nothing about this offers fresh insight into Cook’s and Apple’s plans, and seems to be just petrol poured onto a slow news day (in a week dominated by geopolitical mayhem).

AAPL is down because it went too far, too fast, overshot expectations and technicals, and had been riding the froth of Dan Ives ETF launch into the end of 2025. It’s now settling into a channel between $236 to $289, as seen from the 5-year chart (don’t bother with the 1-year chart, it’s not the right period for this moment)

Still, the (re-surfaced rumour) does surface the subject again, and below were my thoughts on this from two months ago:

— Tommo_UK, London, Thursday 8th December 2025.

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 17th November 2025

So Apple is reportedly preparing for Tim Cook’s eventual retirement as he nears 65. Hardware chief John Ternus, 50, is seen as the leading successor, apparently “favoured for his engineering background.”

But let’s look at this morning closely:

Ternus is directly linked to misses in what Apple calls:

• “mixed reality,”
• generative AI,
• smart home,
• autonomy.
• .. and most recently, the iPhone Air flop.
• .. and who know knows his involvement in failed and shelved Apple projects, or many of its other flops. Being “The Hardware Guy” isn’t really a badge of honour at Apple, right now, given the track record of the last 5 years+

Apple Marketing (responsible for such fantastic names as “Apple Intelligence” and the “Plateau”) is apparently boosting his public profile, which is why he introduced the iPhone Air at the September event, a base for the next iPhone generation.

Well that didn’t turn out to well, did it.

Observers (Chiefly Mark Gurman rumourmongering on Bloomberg) are reported to say Ternus is likely to become CEO. Now CNBC have cottoned onto it.

I brought up the subject of succession a few months ago, amidst a backwash of ill-considered responses in reply.

Suddenly though, it’s OK to talk about succession, presumably because it wasn’t me who raised the prospect. Now it’s open season on speculation about Tim Cook’s departure, so we’re back to where I started:

Who is right for this role?

And remember, it used to be three roles:

• Steve Jobs (product man/sales man/visionary),
• Tim Cook (operations guru par excellence and the originator of supply chain dominance) and
• Jony Ive - creator of Apple’s, in fact the world’s, most iconic designs, for all his few later mistakes of form over function.

The Holy Trinity, Undone.

It stagnated after Jobs death, which left Ive desolated and also alone in his own thoughts: Jobs was very much a mentor for him, and the two vibed off one another in a way which is hard to describe unless you witnessed it.

Then with Ive gone, Cook was on his own, and he turned Apple into an operational Free Cash Flow and supply chain monster.

But not all for the best, because since 2020 there have been so many flawed fundamentally wrong strategic and tactical mistakes made, and so many enormous errors of judgment (AVP, Car, Siri, AI, iterative iPhone releases, no cell-enabled MacBooks, iPadOS left to rot until 2025) and such a revolving door on talent, that Apple seems to have lost any idea of what it is anymore, except a hubris machine full of CGI-laden events using special FX and British accents to lull people into false hope they’re delivering and shipping anything noteworthy, rather than actually doing so.

Let’s look at Ternus record

Because considering his misses, I’d say for all his skills, he’s shown he maybe doesn’t have the right grasp on what Apple needs, let alone its consumers, and who its market actually is.

• ”Mixed Reality: - epic fail
• ”Gen-AI”- epic fail
• “Smart Home” -epic fail
• ”Autonomy” - epic what??
• ”iPhone Air” - Not really an Air, closer to an iPhone 6 with titanium edges and a huge boob tube “plateau” excuse. Reinventing a 10 year old iPhone, sticking a huge bump on the back of it. So far? Seemingly cancelled.
• New MacBooks with modems - no-show, for no reason anyone can explain.

If this is Apple’s future, I question whether he’s the right man for it. Who is? I’d rather have a maverick like Eddy Cue, tempered with some strong lieutenants.

John Ternus, nice guy, but I’d love to know how much he had to do with the iPhone Sock.

Maybe we need Perplexity to do a reverse takeover of Apple, the way Jobs did when Apple bought NExT, and get some fresh blood in?

Apple has turned into an exceptional operation under Cook, without parallel. But innovation and execution, and good judgment? Nothing but failure, Apple Silicon aside, for over five years. And of course, superb financial engineering, even if hardware engineering? Not so much.

Et Tu, Ternus?

— Tommo_UK, London. Monday 17th November 2025.

Any comments, or thoughts, from investors, as opposed to 20-year long buy-and-holders who couldn’t care less because they’re just glad to be living off the dividends from their 11,000% share price increase? Leave them below 😎

X: @tommo_uk

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