John Ternus marks the 15th anniversary of Steve Jobs's death in his first tribute as Apple CEO, alongside Tim CookJohn Ternus marks the 15th anniversary of Steve Jobs's death in his first tribute as Apple CEO, alongside Tim Cook

Apple's chief executive John Ternus and its executive chairman Tim Cook both posted tributes to Steve Jobs on X on 5 October, the 15th anniversary of his death.

It is the first anniversary since Ternus succeeded Cook as chief executive on 1 September. According to 9to5Mac, the two posts appeared at the same time. AppleInsider notes that Cook has posted on the date every year, and that this is the first time Ternus has joined him.

What Ternus and Cook wrote

Ternus's post was two sentences. He wrote that Jobs taught Apple to "care about every detail, every experience, every person", and that this still guides the company's work, ending with "Forever grateful."

Cook's was longer and looked outwards. He contrasted people who leave a mark on the world with those who change it, wrote that "Steve changed the world and so many lives in the process", and added that Jobs had changed his own life for ever. He ended by saying Jobs's spirit lives on in what he created and the people he inspired.

Jobs died at his home in Palo Alto on 5 October 2011, at around 3pm Pacific time, after a long illness with pancreatic cancer. Ternus joined Apple's product design team in 2001, so, as AppleInsider points out, he worked at the company through Jobs's last decade there.

Has Apple marked the anniversary itself?

Not on its website. MacRumors wrote on the morning of 5 October that Apple had posted nothing and that it would update its report if Apple or Ternus did. When APPDOOK checked apple.com shortly after 14:00 UTC, the homepage led with the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo and Apple Watch, with no tribute. On the tenth anniversary in 2021, by contrast, Apple replaced its homepage with a short film, Celebrating Steve, and a statement from the Jobs family, as MacRumors reported at the time. The tributes this year are the two executives' own posts.

Our take

Anniversary posts are usually ceremony, and these are short. But Ternus's choice of words is worth reading beside what has been reported about how he is running Apple. Bloomberg has described him working in Apple's design studio several times a week, with no new design chief being sought, and cutting the program managers who sit between engineers and products. A chief executive who picks "every detail" as the lesson he took from Jobs is describing the job he appears to be doing.

Cook's post is the more personal of the two, which suits his history. He was Jobs's chosen successor and a close friend, and for fourteen years the anniversary was his to mark. This year he marked it as chairman, beside the person who now runs the company. That two-voice tribute is a small, public piece of the handover, and APPDOOK reads it as deliberate: Apple's founder remembered by the chief executive he shaped and by the one who learned under him.

What did not happen is also a choice. Apple keeps the big gestures for round numbers. Fifteen years is a round number too, and the company left its homepage selling phones. Whether that reflects a new chief executive keeping the company's attention forward, or simply a smaller anniversary than the tenth, the posts do not say, and Apple has not explained.