John Ternus is taking over from Tim Cook as Apple’s CEO
The multitrillion-dollar home of iPhone, Mac, and so many other tech gadgets is getting a new leader this fall, as Apple has announced that Tim Cook will be replaced as CEO on September 1st by current hardware boss John Ternus. How will we look back on Tim Cook’s legacy, and what will Apple look like under the leadership of John Ternus and new chief hardware officer Johny Srouji?
We’ll keep track of all of the latest updates right here, starting with a live recording of the Vergecast.
Read Tim Cook’s letter to the Apple world as he departs as CEO
Apple CEO Tim Cook has written a letter to the community as he prepares to step down from his role in September. "This is not goodbye. But at this moment of transition, I wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you," Cook writes.
As part of the shift, John Ternus, Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take over for Cook, who will become executive chairman. Meanwhile, Johny Srouji is taking over for Ternus and has now been appointed chief hardware officer.
You can read Cook's full letter here:
To the Apple community:
For the past 15 years I've started just about every morning the same way. I open my email and …
Apple names Johny Srouji as chief hardware officer
Apple has appointed Johny Srouji as its new chief hardware officer, "effective immediately," according to an announcement on Monday. He is stepping into the shoes of current hardware engineering head John Ternus, who will replace Tim Cook as CEO in September, while Cook becomes the chairman of the board.
Last December, Srouji reassured his team that he's not "leaving anytime soon" after a flurry of reports suggested he was "evaluating" his future with Apple. However, other notable executives have left Apple over the past year as rumors swirled about Cook's successor, with Sabih Khan taking over for Jeff Williams as chief operating officer a …
Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down
Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down and will be succeeded by John Ternus, currently Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering. Ternus will take over as CEO and join Apple's board of directors on September 1st, 2026. Cook, who joined Apple in 1998 and took over as CEO from Steve Jobs in 2011, will become executive chairman of Apple's board.
Apple has also named Johny Srouji, previously Apple's SVP of hardware technologies, as the company's chief hardware officer, effective immediately. Srouji will "assume an expanded role leading Hardware Engineering, which John Ternus most recently oversaw, as well as the hardware technologies o …
Here’s how Amazon’s price fixing allegedly drove up prices everywhere
On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta revealed the evidence of alleged price-fixing by Amazon. The state filed a request to the Supreme Court in February for a preliminary injunction to stop Amazon's behavior while the lawsuit it originally filed in 2022 proceeds, and is now making that 16-page document available, "largely unredacted." It lays out how Amazon allegedly schemed to raise other retailers' prices ahead of Prime Day, or worked with its vendors to make sure items available at a discount elsewhere were suddenly out of stock and unavailable for the lower price.
Bonta says this document shows how the scheme works with Ama …
Silicon Valley has forgotten what normal people want
One of the most mortifying things about knowing a lot of techies is listening to them tell me excitedly about some very important discovery that they believe they have made. Recently, I ran into an acquaintance of mine, who began talking my ear off about an amazing discovery he'd made with LLMs. Knowledge, it turns out, is structured into language! You could put one word into ChatGPT and it might understand what you wanted, or make up a word and see if it understood what you meant! These amazing new tools have revealed that the English corpus contains so much about its speakers!
He concluded that LLMs are a discovery on par with writing.
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WhatsApp tests ‘Plus’ subscription that adds stickers and more for a few bucks a month
WhatsApp users are getting some new customization features - for a price. According to WABetaInfo, Meta is rolling out a WhatsApp Plus subscription to "a limited number of users," offering several cosmetic and quality of life perks, including exclusive stickers, different app themes, custom app icons, premium ringtones, the ability to pin up to 20 chats, and the ability to apply custom settings in bulk to lists of chats.
A screenshot from WABetaInfo shows the subscription's monthly price as €2.49, or just under $3, similar to Snapchat Plus, which costs $3.99 per month and includes similar perks. WhatsApp Plus is currently only supported in …
Japanese man sentenced to prison for posting spoilers
Though it's very common for entertainment writers to describe some narrative elements of the films and shows that they're covering, a Japanese court has determined that the practice can sometimes be tantamount to copyright infringement.
Last Thursday, the Tokyo District Court ruled that 39-year-old Wataru Takeuchi was guilty of violating Japanese law that prohibits the creation of "a new work by making creative modifications to the original while preserving its essential characteristics." Takeuchi worked as administrator of a website that published lengthy, spoiler-heavy descriptions from popular movies and series. And two of Takeuchi's "ar …
Google Photos adds subtle touch-up tools for faces
Google has announced a new collection of touch-up tools for Google Photos' image editor designed to apply subtle enhancements, refinements, or fixes to faces in photos.
The tools are gradually being rolled out on the Google Photos app globally starting today, but only on devices running Android 9.0 and up with at least 4GB of RAM. They'll be accessible after selecting a specific face in a photo and able to remove unwanted blemishes, whiten teeth, smooth skin, and make changes to irises, under eye areas, eyebrows, and lips. The intensity of the effects can be adjusted to ensure they're subtle enough to not be noticeable.
The new tools come …
Insta360 is putting screens on its next wireless mics to show logos or images
Insta360's first wireless microphone kit debuted in June with small, lightweight AirTag-sized mics that were easier to wear hidden away. The new Insta360 Mic Pro, which the company is teasing during the 2026 NAB Show in Las Vegas, is instead designed to be prominently displayed. On the front of each transmitter is a round E Ink color screen that can be customized with photos, logos, branding, or custom artwork.
The company didn't share specifics about when the Mic Pro will launch, aside from a global release planned later this year, but it did reveal some of its functionality. The wireless transmitters each feature a three-microphone array …