Bloomberg reports John Ternus is cutting Apple's program managers to ship more products, fasterBloomberg reports John Ternus is cutting Apple's program managers to ship more products, faster

Apple's new chief executive John Ternus is dismissing engineering program managers and pushing for product launches throughout the year, Bloomberg reported on 29 September.

The report rests on unnamed people familiar with the changes. 9to5Mac, AppleInsider and iClarified all relayed it the same day, and none adds independent sourcing, so this is one report, not four. Apple declined to comment, according to iClarified's account of the Bloomberg piece. Ternus succeeded Tim Cook on 1 September after years running hardware engineering.

What does Bloomberg say has already happened?

The concrete change is in hardware engineering. Over the previous two weeks, Bloomberg reports, Apple dismissed a number of engineering program managers, known internally as EPMs, the staff who manage schedules and coordinate work between teams. Roughly half a dozen directors were among them. Those affected were given weeks to find another role inside Apple, and those who do not will be laid off later this year. The stated aim is to remove layers between engineers and senior executives.

Smaller layoffs have hit the Siri, Vision Pro and AI software teams and a few Fitness+ roles, and some projects early in development have been cancelled or scaled back. AppleInsider's reading of the report adds that some of the departures were linked to performance. Proposed budget increases for 2027 were cut in some divisions, headcount plans were held flat and marketing spending was trimmed, which is why some employees expect more cuts.

One larger plan went the other way. Over the summer Apple considered cutting about 5,000 AppleCare customer-service jobs on the expectation that AI phone and web agents could take on the work. Bloomberg says Apple is not currently pursuing it.

What is planned, but not done?

Ternus reportedly wants Apple to rely less on its spring and autumn launch windows and to introduce products throughout the year, and to be more experimental. Employees told Bloomberg that changing Apple's development habits could take years. He is also working with services chief Eddy Cue and finance chief Kevan Parekh on new services and more revenue from existing products. Bloomberg notes that services revenue fell quarter on quarter in June for the first time since 2022, while still setting a June-quarter record.

The Bank of America note on Meta's Muse

The same day, Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan warned investors that AI agents such as Meta's Muse could take over product discovery and purchases that now pass through Apple's ecosystem, 9to5Mac reported. Apple's shares fell more than 2.5 per cent. Mohan kept a buy rating and a 370 dollar target, but argued that Siri AI lacks Muse's persistent background tasks, broad third-party actions and a payment rail for agents.

Our take

Cutting program managers is a more pointed move than the headline layoffs suggest. EPMs are the people who hold Apple's famously long, tightly sequenced hardware schedules together. Removing a layer of them is a bet that engineers and their leaders can coordinate directly, which is plausible for a CEO who came up through that division and knows where the meetings are. It is also exactly the role whose absence shows up later, as a slipped date or a component that does not arrive in time.

Launches throughout the year sound like a strategy and may turn out to be a scheduling consequence. Apple already ships products outside its two big events by press release. The meaningful change would be shorter development cycles, and Bloomberg's own sources say that will take years. We would not expect it to alter the 2026 or 2027 calendar much, beyond the October hardware that is already reported.

The services thread is the one customers will feel first. More revenue from existing products usually means more paid tiers inside things people already use, and we have already seen premium features in Pages, Keynote and Numbers move behind a Creator Studio subscription. Read alongside the Bank of America note, APPDOOK's interpretation is that Apple is being pressed from two sides at once: to cut cost inside, and to defend the services business that pays for the cuts against agents that bypass the App Store. All of this is reported, not announced, and the company has said nothing.