Solving the "mountain of shit" that is Siri is the top task for Apple's new leader

Apple Inc. is about to undergo a significant power transition. According to Bloomberg, 64-year-old Tim Cook may step down as CEO as early as 2026, ending his 15-year tenure.

However, for consumers and the entire tech industry, the most pressing question is who will take over this tech giant with a market value exceeding $4 trillion.

Under Cook's leadership, Apple has created miracles in business history. Since he took over in 2011, Apple's market value has skyrocketed from $350 billion to over $4 trillion, an increase of more than tenfold. The iPhone remains the most profitable consumer electronics product globally, with its services business surpassing $100 billion in annual revenue, and its supply chain efficiency has reached heights that are difficult for the industry to match.

However, this operational master has left his successor with a challenging exam: in the current wave of AI sweeping the globe, Apple seems to be lagging behind.

The AI upgrade for Siri has been repeatedly delayed, there are no killer AI applications like ChatGPT on the iPhone, and Vision Pro has not become a breakthrough in AI hardware. How to make Apple's products competitive in the AI era has become the most urgent challenge facing the new leader.

Therefore, regardless of who ultimately takes over as CEO, the primary task is already very clear: to reverse Apple's passive lag in the AI field while maintaining stable business operations. However, this task is easier said than done.

A

In line with Apple's usual style, the successor to the CEO will likely come from within the senior executives.

Bloomberg pointed out in the article that Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus is now widely regarded as the most likely candidate.

A person close to Apple's executive team stated, "Tim really likes him because he is good at presentations, has a gentle personality, never leaves controversial content in emails, and is extremely cautious when making decisions. He shares many management traits with Tim." Cook has also publicly praised Ternus for his "deep expertise and broad experience."

Ternus is a typical techie. He holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems before joining Apple. Ternus joined Apple's product design team in 2001, and over the past 20 years, he has been involved in the engineering design of nearly all major hardware products at Apple.

Since 2013, Ternus has served as Vice President of Hardware Engineering, overseeing the hardware engineering work for various groundbreaking products, including every model of the iPad, the latest iPhone series, and AirPods. He was also a key leader in the transition of Macs to Apple chips, spearheading the rollout of the M series chips across the Mac product line In January 2021, when former Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio transitioned to lead the AR/VR project, John Ternus took over this position, officially becoming the highest authority in Apple's hardware engineering, reporting directly to Cook.

In recent years, Ternus has appeared more frequently at Apple's launch events. He often introduces new products, from the hardware design of the iPhone 12 series to the technological breakthroughs of the M1 chip, and the latest iPhone Air. These public appearances not only showcase his work achievements but are also seen by Apple's investors as a sign that Apple is intentionally nurturing him.

As Apple's services account for an increasing proportion of total revenue, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi's position at Apple is also at its peak.

He is responsible for the development of iOS and macOS, the two operating systems that support the operation of Apple's entire ecosystem. When he first joined NeXT in 1994, Federighi was a young engineer who had just graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. After NeXT was acquired by Apple, he followed Jobs back to Apple and participated in the early development of Mac OS X.

In 2009, he returned to Apple and has since risen through the ranks, succeeding Scott Forstall as Senior Vice President of Software Engineering in 2012.

Federighi's greatest characteristic is efficiency, but he manages with strictness. Since he took over the software engineering team, he has built a culture of efficient execution, which stands in stark contrast to the loose style of the previous AI/ML department.

In 2025, after taking over the management responsibilities of Siri, he directly instructed the team to create top-notch AI features at all costs, even allowing the use of third-party open-source models. He also formed a smart systems team to advance voice command-related projects, managing to focus on goals and push work forward even amid friction with other departments.

There is also a less likely candidate named Deirdre O'Brien. She joined Apple in 1988 as an operations specialist. Over the past 30 years, she has worked in almost every key department at Apple: global operations, global sales, and online stores.

In 2019, when legendary retail chief Angela Ahrendts left, O'Brien took over the retail business while also retaining her responsibilities in human resources. This dual role makes her the only leader in Apple's executive team who manages both business and personnel O'Brien's understanding of Apple's culture may be deeper than anyone else's. She personally experienced the entire process of Apple going from the brink of bankruptcy to becoming the world's most valuable company, witnessing the evolution of the company's culture.

She was also responsible for formulating Apple's talent strategy and corporate culture policies, coordinating remote work for nearly 160,000 employees globally during the pandemic. However, O'Brien's biggest issue is that she lacks product and technical experience.

But the top choice for Apple's senior management is actually former COO Jeff Williams. However, he announced his departure in July 2025.

Therefore, the spotlight on Tenus is not because he is the most perfect, but because he has achieved a relative balance between hardware technology, product experience, and leadership.

Cook has an MBA background; after graduating from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, he worked at IBM for 12 years, accumulating deep operational and supply chain experience. When he joined Apple in 1998, Cook served as Vice President, overseeing computer manufacturing.

In 2005, Cook was promoted to COO, responsible for core operational businesses such as manufacturing and distribution. He then succeeded Jobs as CEO in 2011. Cook excels in business operations, supply chain management, cost control, and overall strategy.

During his tenure, Apple's market value skyrocketed from $350 billion to over $4 trillion, supply chain efficiency reached industry-leading levels, and the services business grew into an important source of revenue.

Tenus, who comes from a pure hardware technology background, lacks the global business operation experience that Cook has. He has not managed a financial department, has not built a supply chain system from scratch, and has not led any large strategic mergers and acquisitions.

But you must understand that Apple is no longer the 3C company focused on designing and selling products; it has become a commercial giant with a market value of $4 trillion encompassing hardware and software.

While technology is certainly important, the new leader of Apple also needs strategic vision, courage, investment methods, and other financial and management knowledge. Whether Tenus can bear the flag remains a question mark.

B

However, no matter who takes over from Cook, Apple must answer the question posed at the beginning of the article, which is that in the hottest AI race globally, Apple seems to be lagging behind.

Zuckerberg candidly stated during his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in January 2025: "Jobs invented the iPhone. And 20 years later, they are still resting on their laurels." In addition, he also commented on the lack of cost-effectiveness of Apple's Vision Pro headset, stating that while it is one of Apple's few innovative attempts in recent years, the first-generation product did not achieve success.

At WWDC in June 2024, Apple launched Apple Intelligence, a system that includes an upgrade to the system-level AI assistant Siri, cross-application information integration capabilities, and text and image generation and editing functions Although it sounds like a groundbreaking upgrade, the actual progress has turned into an Apple-style procrastination.

The new version of Siri, originally planned for release in 2025, has been delayed to 2026 or even later due to a series of technical challenges.

The reason is simple—poor code quality. According to Bloomberg, Apple engineers adopted a strategy of splitting Siri's infrastructure in two to add AI features, attempting to integrate new large language model capabilities while retaining existing functions.

However, when they tried to merge the new AI features with traditional functions (such as setting alarms and sending messages), the entire system began to experience serious issues. Wonderful Engineering reported that during internal testing, the failure rate of these functions reached over 33%.

At the same time, the new version of Siri needs to understand the user's personal context, such as automatically retrieving podcast recommendations from friends based on locally stored information or tracking relatives' flight statuses in real-time. This means Siri needs the ability to integrate and analyze multidimensional data across applications, but Siri's current architecture cannot stably support such complex data interactions.

Furthermore, reports from Wonderful Engineering indicate that Apple's software engineering team hopes Siri can automatically break down complex requests into multiple steps and seamlessly collaborate across different applications to complete tasks, similar to ChatGPT-5. However, this requires application developers to provide specific code interfaces (referred to by Apple as "app intents"), but currently, there is no development ecosystem for app intents within Apple's developer community.

Insiders at Apple have revealed that some developers in the AI department believe it is necessary to "rebuild these features from scratch." Currently, a team in Zurich, Switzerland, is developing a new software architecture entirely based on large language model engines, codenamed "LLM Siri." This means that a significant amount of work done over the past year may need to be redone.

Apple's Senior Vice President of ML/AI Strategy, John Giannandrea, announced that "LLM Siri" will not be realized until at least the spring of 2026 with the iOS 26.4 version.

C

Talent loss has exacerbated this issue, slowing Apple's AI development progress.

Since January 2025, several key AI executives have left Apple, many of whom were poached by Meta, including Pang Ruoming, head of Apple's foundational models and core generative AI team, Yang Ke, developer of Apple's AI search and Q&A system, Zhang Jian, head of Apple's robotics AI research team, and Apple AI executive Robby Walker What makes Apple even more awkward is that they also have to face competition from their former executives. In May 2025, OpenAI acquired the AI hardware startup io for about $6.5 billion, bringing former Apple Chief Designer Jony Ive under its wing. Ive, who served as Apple's Chief Design Officer, was a core assistant to Steve Jobs and was deeply involved in the design of iconic Apple products such as the iPhone, iMac, and iPad.

AI software is not Apple's only problem; there is also AI hardware. The market performance of Vision Pro has also been disappointing. This $3,499 headset device has not met sales expectations since its launch in February 2024. Data shows that Vision Pro has sold less than 500,000 units since its launch. According to Bloomberg news, Apple has canceled the originally planned lower-spec version of Vision Pro.

A report from market research firm TrendForce shows that global shipments of VR and MR headsets are expected to reach 9.6 million units in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 8.8%. Meta holds an absolute dominant position with a 73% market share, while Sony's PS VR2 ranks second with 9%. Vision Pro ranks third with a 5% market share.

Cook has also left a bonus question for the new leader, which is the foldable iPhone. According to multiple sources, Apple plans to launch its first foldable iPhone in 2026, possibly named iPhone Fold or iPhone Ultra.

This device features a book-style horizontal fold design, similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold series, rather than a flip-style small folding solution. When unfolded, the inner screen size is about 7.8 inches, providing an experience close to that of the iPad mini; in the folded state, the outer screen is about 5.5 inches, maintaining the portability of the iPhone.

Multiple supply chain sources indicate that this foldable iPhone may use a 24MP under-display front camera to achieve a true full-screen effect. To keep the body slim, Apple may eliminate the Face ID module and instead integrate Touch ID fingerprint recognition into the power button.

Regarding the screen, Apple is collaborating with Samsung Display to develop "no crease" display technology, aiming to compress the crease width to a level that is almost invisible to the naked eye. The hinge part may use a mixed material of titanium and stainless steel, ensuring durability while maintaining lightweight.

However, the progress of this project is not smooth. Although the initial timeline pointed to a release in September 2026 alongside the iPhone 18 series, the latest reports indicate that the release may be delayed until 2027 due to the design specifications of key components such as the hinge still being confirmed. The adjustment of production capacity planning further illustrates the issue Apple initially planned to ship 10-15 million units in the first year, but supply chain news indicates that the production of screen panels has been revised down from 13 million to 9 million, and the actual device output may only be around 7 million units. This number is far below the normal level for a flagship iPhone. For reference, the annual shipment of the iPhone 16 Pro in 2024 is expected to be 26 million units.

What lies ahead for Apple's new leader are two very clear tasks: one is how to inherit Cook's legacy, and the other is how to lead Apple towards innovation.

During Cook's era, Apple maintained high standards in product quality, but the pace of innovation has clearly slowed down.

According to Bloomberg, many former Apple employees complain that the company has become increasingly conservative, with decision-making processes becoming more lengthy, requiring financial assessments for everything, and considering the impact on profit margins. This culture is suitable for optimizing existing businesses but is not conducive to breakthrough innovation.

Currently, Apple has six major hardware product lines, four main operating systems, and a range of service businesses covering music, cloud storage, video, gaming, and more. When Cook took over Apple, there were only four hardware product lines and two operating systems.

Therefore, the new leader has more considerations than Cook did. Additionally, according to Apple's financial report, as of the time of writing, the company has cash and cash equivalents amounting to $132 billion, with net cash of $34 billion. This is a substantial figure sitting in Apple's accounts. How to utilize and plan this will directly determine Apple's future.

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