Tim Cook to step down as Apple chief executive after nearly 15-year reign

Apple chief executive Tim Cook is stepping down from the job that he inherited from the late Steve Jobs.

It ends a nearly 15-year reign that saw the US company’s market value soar by more than 3.6 trillion dollars during an iPhone-fuelled era of prosperity.

Mr Cook, 65, will hand chief executive duties to Apple’s head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, on September 1 while remaining involved with the Cupertino, California, company as executive chairman.

It follows similar transitions made by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Netflix’s Reed Hastings after they ended their highly successful tenures as chief executive.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company,” Mr Cook said in a statement.

“I love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people.”

Mr Ternus, 50, has been with Apple for the past quarter century, including the past five years overseeing the engineering underlying the iPhone, iPad and Mac — a role that made him a prime candidate to succeed Mr Cook.

“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” Mr Ternus said in a statement.

The move also comes at a pivotal time for Apple.

Artificial intelligence has unleashed the most upheaval within the industry since Mr Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007.

Apple has gotten off to a rough start in AI after stumbling in its efforts to deliver new features built on the technology, as promised nearly two years ago.

Earlier this year, Apple finally turned to Google — an early leader in the AI race — for help making the iPhone’s virtual assistant Siri into a more conversational and versatile helper.

Although he never shook the perception that he lacked Mr Jobs’s vision, Mr Cook leveraged the popularity of the iPhone and other breakthroughs orchestrated by his predecessor to lift Apple to heights that seemed unfathomable when it was on the brink of bankruptcy during the mid-1990s.