Tim Cook’s tenure Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the first woman to lead Apple. coming to a close Apple’s trillion-dollar period will be ushered in by Apple on Sept. 1, which is expected to mark the beginning of a new era marked by financial growth and improved operational efficiency.
His most important achievement may be his decision to double down on Apple’s services, including iCloud and the App Store. Apple TV+ is also included, as well as News+. The subscription layer is built on iOS and all service apps have a tight integration with Messages. stuck to their iPhones.
Apple’s most recent earnings reportFor the period ending in December 2025, Apple’s services division achieved a new revenue record. It reached $30 billion. It was an increase of 14 percent from the previous quarter. Services was a more profitable business than Macs, iPads, Apple Watches, Apple Home and other accessories. Apple Services generated $109 billion in revenue for Apple during the entire fiscal year of 2025. This is a 14 percent increase from the previous fiscal period.
Cook took on the role of CEO in 2011 when he first became involved. “services” iTunes didn’t generate a distinct revenue category. However, by proxy, iTunes generated around $6 billion per year.
Ben Thompson, the analyst points outCook had not yet been appointed CEO when some work was done to set up Apple’s service. App Store launched in 2008Jobs was foresighted to offer a 30% discount on the iPhone a year after its debut. “tax” You can also make in-app and paid purchases. Apple employee Phil Schiller was a staunch Jobs supporter. “fellow,” Eddy Cue was the senior vice-president of services at the time and was the main driving force behind the strategy. The executive responsible for this strategy is Schiller. famously changed the developer tax—slightly—in 2016, to make it more favorable to app makers, in response to complaints that Apple was unfairly squeezing developers.)
Apple’s transition from being the most successful consumer electronics company in the world to one of its most dominant platform companies was made possible by Cook. It was in part due to services. Now the question is whether Apple CEO John Ternus can expand Apple’s platform to the new era of generative AI. So far, Apple’s approach to advanced AI—specifically generative AI, since Apple has wielded machine learning in all kinds of clever ways for years now—has been mystifying.
Apple’s Siri has suffered from errors, limitations, haplessness, and other problems since its launch in 2011. Apple announced its plans for 2024. “Apple Intelligence,” A new term for AI capabilities that are embedded into Siri and other products. But after postponing the release Apple’s AI executives began leaving the company in anticipation of a Siri enhanced by AI. Robby Walker left the company in October that same year. John Giannandrea left Apple as its head of AI in 2025. After Giannadrea left, Craig Federighi, Apple’s long-time software chief took over. reportedly took charge of Siri.
Ternus is a hardware expert. Apple’s senior Vice President for Hardware Engineering, Ternus is Apple since 2021. Ternus had been a Vice President of Engineering and a member of the product design team at Apple since 2001. Apple is unlikely to choose a hardware executive for its leadership team as the company tries to figure out what it thinks about LLMs (learning by inference), Siri’s chatbot capabilities, AI privacy, aura coding and other topics.
Ternus was also in charge of one the most important functions Platforms Apple’s chipset business is the future of Apple. Ming Chi Kuo, Apple’s famed analyst. pointed out on X Ternus makes its most important move since recent years “was leading the Mac transition from x86 (Intel) to ARM (Apple’s own Apple Silicon).” The aforementioned was the aforementioned “system- and platform-level transition, essentially a brain transplant” This is required “a very high level of execution and tight cross-functional coordination.” Kuo says that Apple would not be in the position it is now, as it prepares for AI devices, if it didn’t do this.
