Apple CEO John Ternus wants to make one thing clear: the iPhone is not going anywhere.
During his first keynote as Apple’s CEO on Wednesday, Ternus placed the company’s long-running flagship product firmly at the heart of its strategy for the AI era, strongly emphasizing the continued importance of the iPhone.
“There’s no product in the world better designed to be your intelligent personal hub than iPhone,” he said.
The position marks a contrast with former CEO Tim Cook, who repeatedly sought to persuade Wall Street that Apple was much more than an iPhone company.
Ternus’ message also pushes back against recent predictions that the iPhone may be approaching the end of its relevance. Headlines have suggested that smartphones have limited time left, while other commentary has described the end of the Tim Cook era as an existential challenge for Apple as the company tries to determine what comes after the iPhone.
However, Ternus’ strategy is about more than simply defending the company’s hardware. He has placed the iPhone at the center of his “intelligent personal assistant” vision, an approach that could shape Apple’s direction for years. In doing so, he is echoing something Steve Jobs did with the Mac in 2001, less than 10 months before introducing the iPod.
At the time, many industry observers believed the PC’s best days were behind it. During a Macworld New York keynote, Jobs highlighted pessimistic comments from technology figures including Walt Mossberg, as well as executives from Compaq and Gateway.
“This is what everyone else is telling us. That our PC is waning if not the hole being dug,” Jobs said, while pointing toward an on-screen tombstone labeled “Beloved PC.” Jobs disagreed with that assessment, saying Apple did not believe the PC was dying or moving away from the center of computing. Instead, he argued that the PC was evolving, just as it had since its invention.
“We think the PC is on the threshold of entering its third great age,” Jobs added. His argument was based partly on the growing number of digital devices emerging at the time, including camcorders, digital cameras, and DVD players.
Jobs envisioned the Mac as the central component of a “digital hub” capable of connecting these different devices and, as he described it, adding value to each of them.
Later that year, Jobs introduced the iPod, pulling the device from his pocket in what appeared to be an answer to the question of why consumers would still need a PC. The product became a massive success, helping Apple increase its profits quarter after quarter and eventually contributing to the development of the iPhone.
Now, with the iPhone approaching its 20th anniversary, Ternus is confronting a modern version of the same question Jobs faced in 2001. It remains unclear whether Ternus is secretly working on an iPod-like product that could help preserve the iPhone’s role as Apple’s central hub for years to come. What is clear is that he is pushing back firmly against the idea that the iPhone has reached the end of its prime.
“If you were designing the ideal version of this hub from scratch, how would you do it?” Ternus asked before outlining the key components: a powerful processor, high-resolution cameras, constant connectivity, and on-device AI.
The iPhone also has an important advantage in the AI era because it is already among the most powerful personal computing devices available. That gives Apple an edge as AI increasingly demands significant computing power. The phone’s portability and flexibility also mean that, for many users, it is the only computing device they truly need. Even people who own laptops and iPads often consider the iPhone indispensable. Many people can leave home without a laptop, but very few leave without their phone.
That combination of computing power and portability has placed Apple in a privileged position as the AI industry develops. Numerous companies have tried to challenge the iPhone’s dominance with different types of wearable devices, but none has managed to successfully replace it.
Rather than pushing the iPhone aside in favor of the next major hardware trend, Ternus appears to be doing the opposite. He is doubling down on the device and, in some ways, bringing Apple closer to something consumers already understand: the iPhone remains an exceptionally capable device, and perhaps there is no need to replace it with something else — at least not yet.
