Bloomberg reports John Ternus works in Apple's design studio several times a week, and no design chief is being soughtBloomberg reports John Ternus works in Apple's design studio several times a week, and no design chief is being sought

Apple chief executive John Ternus has made product design a major priority and works hands-on in the company's design studio several times a week, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported on 4 October.

The account comes from Gurman's Power On newsletter and rests on people familiar with the design teams. MacRumors, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac and iClarified all relay the same newsletter and none adds its own sourcing, so it is one report. Apple has not commented. Ternus succeeded Tim Cook as chief executive on 1 September after running hardware engineering.

What Bloomberg reports

Ternus visits the studio several times a week, sometimes more than once in a day, according to the newsletter as MacRumors quotes it. Cook typically spent about an hour there once a month at most. Gurman says Ternus has immersed himself in both the industrial design team, which shapes the hardware, and the human interface team, which designs the software.

To make the time, Ternus is largely leaving finance to chief financial officer Kevan Parekh and the supply chain to chief operating officer Sabih Khan. On the engineering side he works closely with chief hardware officer Johny Srouji and hardware engineering leader Tom Marieb. AppleInsider relays Gurman's account of a conversation in which Ternus told employees that Cook had spent his tenure where he could add the most value, and that he meant to do the same in his own way.

Who runs Apple design now?

No single executive has run both design teams since Jony Ive left in 2019. They reported to former chief operating officer Jeff Williams until he retired in 2025, then formally to Cook, but in practice to Ternus, iClarified's summary says. During the handover from Cook, the design leaders were effectively Ternus's only direct reports.

Molly Anderson leads industrial design, a role she has held since 2024, and Steve Lemay leads human interface design after Alan Dye left for Meta. Apple put both on camera for the iPhone Duo launch. Gurman says Apple is not searching for an outside chief design officer, and describes Ternus as having effectively picked himself for the job.

The studio is rebuilding after departures to Ive's firm LoveFrom, to OpenAI and to other companies, which led to promotions of junior designers and more outside hiring. iClarified reports that the Belgian furniture designer Julien Renault joined the industrial design team last week. AppleInsider's account groups Dye with the OpenAI departures; 9to5Mac and iClarified both say Meta, which is where he went, and we follow them. Apple's other hiring this week was less exalted: MacRumors spotted a listing for an iCup Supply Specialist, looking after up to 90 bean-to-cup coffee machines across Apple sites.

Our take

This is the second Bloomberg account in a week of Ternus running Apple differently from Cook, and the two fit together. The first said he is cutting the program managers who hold Apple's hardware schedules together. This one says he is spending the time saved in the studio. Both describe a chief executive who wants fewer layers between himself and the people making the product.

Visits to the studio are an input, not an outcome, and the reporting cannot tell us whether the products get better. What it does tell us is where accountability now sits. With no chief design officer and no plan to hire one, a hardware decision that disappoints, a crease, a heavy laptop, a confusing new interface, lands on the chief executive directly. Ternus's own engineering chief has already shown the style: Tom Marieb invited scrutiny of the iPhone Duo crease rather than publishing a fold rating, which is confidence that only holds if the hardware delivers.

APPDOOK's reading is that the risk is on the software side. Ternus's background is hardware, and the studio he is closest to is the one that makes objects. The human interface team is the one users meet every day, and it is the team behind Liquid Glass, a redesign Apple has since given Mac users a slider to tone down. A chief executive acting as design chief has to be as engaged with how a menu behaves as with how a hinge feels, and the coming year of software is where that will show.