Apple's new CEO, John Turnus, believes the company should create perfect products, not rush releases or copy competitors. A prime example of this approach was the new flexible iPhone Duo smartphone.
Apple's new CEO, John Turnus, believes the company should create perfect products, not rush releases or copy competitors. A prime example of this approach was the new flexible iPhone Duo smartphone.
John Turnus, who was appointed Tim Cook's successor in April 2026 (25 years after he joined the company), was involved in the development of the future iPhone Duo more than 10 years ago, writes AppleInsider.
Ternus said that, together with five other engineers, he filed a patent for flexible devices back in 2011: "Back then, it was obvious that sooner or later we would get to flexible OLED displays."
While Apple was preparing its foldable smartphone, Samsung and other competing brands were significantly ahead of the company in terms of time to market. But Ternus was not fazed by this. According to him, other flexible devices on the market at the time “looked cheap and of poor quality.”
The desire to release the perfect device, rather than being the first, is also confirmed by Apple's vice president of product design Richard Dean. He noted that the company could have released a flexible iPhone much earlier.
According to Dean, Apple already had a prototype with a screen coating similar to competitors' solutions. Despite some flaws, Dean considered it "good enough" to launch, given the activity of competitors.
“But Ternus said to me, ‘Listen, Rich, you’ll know when this is really the right product.’ That gave us the confidence to push the boundaries of innovation and manufacturing, fly around the world, bringing together suppliers, and eventually create a nanotextured coating,” recalls Richard Dean.
Despite the company's reputation for building everything itself, Ternus doesn't believe Apple should manufacture every single component.
“We don’t aim to do everything in a product. We do what we can to really make it unique and different from others. You can’t do everything, so we try to limit ourselves to what’s most important and put all our effort into those things,” emphasizes the Apple CEO.
He also admitted that not all of the company's features are perfect from the start. For example, he used to be less than happy with the Screen Time feature on his children's phones, although recent updates have made it significantly better.
Commenting on the competition in the field of artificial intelligence, Ternus reiterated Apple's position: the company's main advantage lies in the ecosystem and privacy.
“Your whole life is in your phone. With Siri AI, you can use this information to complete tasks, learn new things, and solve problems like no one else can,” the company’s CEO said.
In addition, Ternus does not believe in a scenario where people will communicate only with AI and smartphones will disappear: "People want to experience physical things. They want to communicate, see photos of loved ones, take photos themselves. So I don't see a scenario where our devices suddenly disappear and we don't need an iPhone anymore."
