John Ternus talks iPhone Duo

TIME has just published its list of the best inventions of 2026, and iPhone Duo made the list with John Ternus featured on the magazine cover. Here’s what Ternus said in his interview with TIME.

Apple CEO John Ternus has been featured on the cover of TIME Magazine's "Best Inventions of 2026" edition, available October 26. Ternus, who joined Apple in 2001 and was formerly its senior vice president of hardware engineering, succeeded Tim Cook as the company's CEO on September 1.

This paved the way for Ternus to unveil the iPhone Duo just eight days later. Ternus believes the iPhone Duo stands apart from other foldable smartphones.

"The other examples in the world felt kind of cheap and crappy," said Ternus, in an interview with TIME 's Andrew R. Ternus was eight years old when his father purchased an Apple II computer.

"I started playing games on it and fell in love with… Cook remains at Apple as executive chairman, with his primary focus being engaging with policymakers around the world.

"He has great relationships and loves Apple," Ternus said of Cook. "So wherever he can help, he is happy to help." In a separate interview, Cook said he is " not meddling " with Ternus.

Apple's large language models that power Siri AI are "based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology," according to a joint announcement from Apple and Google earlier this year. When asked about this, Ternus said Apple does not always have to make the whole widget, with the company focused on areas it can provide "differentiation." "There's not really a goal that we have to make every single thing in a product," he said.

"We make the things where we can really bring differentiation." Apple also tries to remain focused. "You can't do everything," Ternus added.

"So we kind of try to constrain ourselves to the stuff that matters most—and then put all of our effort into those things." The full magazine cover is below.

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