Mark Gurman, writing at Bloomberg, about who could be the next CEO of Apple, assuming Tim Cook sticks around long enough for the torch to pass over Jeff Williams, who is 61 years old, just two years younger than Cook:

If Cook were to stay that long, people within Apple say, the most likely successor would be John Ternus, the hardware engineering chief. In a company whose success has always come from building category-defining gadgets, the ascension of a hardware engineering expert to the CEO job would seem logical. Ternus, who’s not yet 50, would also be more likely than other members of the executive team to stick around for a long time, potentially providing another decade or more of Cook-esque stability.

Ternus is well-liked inside Apple, and he’s earned the respect of Cook, Williams and other leaders. “Tim likes him a lot, because he can give a good presentation, he’s very mild-mannered, never puts anything into an email that is controversial and is a very reticent decision-maker,” says one person close to Apple’s executive team. “He has a lot of managerial characteristics like Tim.” Christopher Stringer, a former top Apple hardware designer, called Ternus a “trustworthy hand” who’s “never failed with any role he’s been elevated to.” Eddy Cue, the Apple executive known as Cook’s closest confidant, has privately told colleagues that Ternus should be the next CEO, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

If you’ve been paying attention to Apple events over the last few years, you will already be familiar with Ternus. He’s been the presenter for all sorts of hardware announcements. Not surprisingly, there are those at Apple who don’t love the idea, as Gurman writes:

“They got a real big problem,” a person close to Apple says. “Ternus is a great guy, but he’s honestly really junior. He comes off as just one of the guys in the room, not like a refined executive or a person in charge. Being the CEO of a multitrillion-dollar company, you better command presence in the room.” Another person says the internal criticism of Ternus is that he needs to assert himself with more force, adding that he seems to know this is where he’ll need to improve. The fundamental question, says one person close to the matter, is whether he’ll be ready to take on the role when Cook steps down.

Other names that come up include Craig Federighi, head of software engineering, a recognizable face among Apple’s biggest fans who’s known internally to be conversant on corporate issues well outside of his purview, and Deirdre O’Brien, its head of retail and a Cook confidant, according to one former executive. People close to the company consider them unlikely successors.

@BenRiceM on Mastodon:

Terrible headline suggestions:

“One good Ternus deserves another”

“Mom says it’s my Ternus to be CEO”

“How the tables have Ternus”

Perfect.

Today’s Apple event has come and gone, and in its wake are some new iPads, a slightly saner iPad lineup, and some questions.

The biggest one for me is this:

Does Apple know what the iPad actually needs?

Right before debuting new iPad Pros, John Ternus said that Apple was “gonna crush the limits of what you can do on iPad.”

As nice as the new OLED display looks, and no matter how powerful the new M4 may be, the iPad’s problem in 2024 — or another year for that matter — is the software. Fourteen years into its lifespan and the iPad still can’t seem to fully shake off its iPhone OS roots. Almost everything Apple has attempted to bolt atop iPadOS to make it more useful for more people has come with weird tradeoffs. Look no further than something like Stage Manager, or that just today Apple announced a version of Final Cut that can use external drives for project storage.

(Don’t get me started on file management on iPadOS. It’s still such a mess.)

I fully understand that iPadOS has to serve an incredibly wide range of customers, from little kids to people who want to earn their living using just a tablet, and I don’t envy the folks at Apple who are trying to move the platform forward without alienating a wide swath of the iPad’s user base.

There is a lot of good in the iPad. Running the same library of apps as the iPhone is a big deal, and doing so in a more secure way than traditional personal computers is an even bigger one. The combination of a touch screen, the Apple Pencil, and traditional input methods like a keyboard and trackpad makes the iPad extremely versatile.

However, as I wrote yesterday, the iPad can never become what Apple promised unless Apple drastically changes course here.

Maybe Apple is okay with that. “The Mac is back from the brink,” you may say, “so why not have two platforms and let people choose which one is best for them?”

I think that’s the reality we’re living in now, but I’m not sure anyone has told Apple. The company seems to continue to believe that the iPad is a general-purpose computer, and it’s just not, at least for a lot of people. When WWDC rolls around in a few weeks, I suspect iPadOS will continue on the trajectory it is currently on, and I think many of us find that a bit underwhelming, especially given how incredible the iPad’s hardware is.

Jason Snell has written what a lot of us have been thinking: that the best thing for the future of the iPad could be the Mac:

It’s funny how the Mac keeps coming back into this, isn’t it? There’s a good reason. The Mac is Apple’s do-it-all computing platform, and thanks to the boost from Apple silicon, it’s really doing better than ever. That mid-2010s malaise when it felt like Apple had no clear idea about the Mac’s future, which coincided with the possibility that the iPad would ultimately replace it, is gone.

Instead, the Mac is a key that can unlock the limitations of Apple’s platforms. One of the best features of the Vision Pro is its ability to connect to a Mac and display the Mac’s interface in a large virtual space. The Vision Pro becomes a stronger product because macOS exists, and integrates with visionOS.

Unless Apple drastically changes course with iPadOS, the iPad can never become what Apple promised. Maybe the future of computing was with us all along.

Jason Snell:

Apple announced its financial results for its second fiscal quarter of 2024 on Thursday. The company booked $90.8 billion in revenue (down 4% versus the year-ago quarter) with $23.6 billion in profit. Mac revenue was up 4%, presumably buoyed by the release of the M3 MacBook Air. iPad revenue crashed down to $5.6 billion, a 17% drop from the year-ago quarter and the weakest iPad quarter in four years. iPhone revenue was $46 billion, down 10% versus the year-ago quarter.

Services revenue was the big highlight for Apple this quarter, with a new record $23.9 billion in revenue, up 14% year over year. The Wearables, Home, and Accessories category managed only $7.9 billion in revenue, down 10% versus the year-ago quarter.

A funny thing happened as the results were being reported, but I’ll leave that to Zac Hall to sort out.

John Voorhees:

One of the most controversial aspects of Apple’s response to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) was the introduction of a Core Technology Fee (CTF), which must be paid by developers who opt into Apple’s alternative business terms. Today, in a post on its developer website, Apple announced changes to the CTF and regarding the treatment of iPadOS, which was added to Apple’s DMA compliance obligations earlier this week.

The problem was that the CTF as originally conceived applied to all apps, including free apps. If a developer offered a free app and had first annual app installs of over 1 million installations, they would owe the €0.50 per installation fee, regardless of the fact they earned no income from the app. The fee, as proposed, would likewise be a problem for developers with other sources of income that weren’t enough to pay the CTF.

Here are the two changes Apple has made:

• First, no CTF is required if a developer has no revenue whatsoever. This includes creating a free app without monetization that is not related to revenue of any kind (physical, digital, advertising, or otherwise). This condition is intended to give students, hobbyists, and other non-commercial developers an opportunity to create a popular app without paying the CTF.

• Second, small developers (less than €10 million in global annual business revenue*) that adopt the alternative business terms receive a 3-year free on-ramp to the CTF to help them create innovative apps and rapidly grow their business. Within this 3-year period, if a small developer that hasn’t previously exceeded one million first annual installs crosses the threshold for the first time, they won’t pay the CTF, even if they continue to exceed one million first annual installs during that time. If a small developer grows to earn global revenue between €10 million and €50 million within the 3-year on-ramp period, they’ll start to pay the CTF after one million first annual installs up to a cap of €1 million per year.

These are both moves in the right direction, but developers will need to keep an eye on that change that takes place three years in.

John Voorhees at MacStories:

Today, the European Union announced that it has added iPadOS to the products and services subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The designation gives Apple six months to comply with the DMA.

iOS is already subject to the DMA, and Apple’s response meant that actions it took to comply with the law did not apply to iPadOS, leading to incongruous differences between the platforms. With the addition of iPadOS under the purview of the DMA, I expect some of those differences will need to be ironed out.