Product decisions at Apple: Dreier Committee instead of a big chairman

Before Steve Jobs died in 2011, the hierarchy at Apple was clear: The Apple co-founder was the top “editor-in-chief”, who evaluated and criticized the ideas of his hand-picked employees and finally fell the most important product decisions. However, this seems different among Jobs’ successors Tim Cook: it is known that he is not a “product man”, but is in particular on the business and production technology details. Without Cook, for example, Apple would never have succeeded in producing and selling such high iPhone pieces. But who now decides which new hardware and software comes from Apple? The usually well-informed Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman dares in his Newsletter from the weekend An interesting thesis: According to his sources, a three -person committee is now deciding on this at Apple.

It is going well economically

Apple has not had a single decision-makers since the Steve Jobs Days. When it comes to approval of new products, a total of three people were among the critical managers: Marketing Boss Greg “Joz” Joswiak, hardware chief John Ternus and software manager Craig Federighi. Despite this triumvirate, Apple is ultimately run by Tim Cook and his Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams.

But Cook and Williams are inclined to submit to Joswiak, Ternus and Federighi within Apple, i.e. what is ultimately given to the customers. Apple is by no means bad: sales and profit are significantly higher than at the time of Steve Jobs. However, there is always criticism that Apple reacts comparatively slowly to trends. These include foldable devices, a possible touchscreen-Mac or the previously convincing AI approaches of the Group alias Apple Intelligence.

The question of the cooking successor

It remains unclear who wants to succeed Cooks if he doesn’t want to stay CEO for longer. Cook turns 65 in November, which is also a retirement age in the United States. In the meantime there were rumors that the relatively young John Ternus (born 1975) may be used as a cooking successor.

Most recently, software chief Federighi had got more power again. He is said to have taken over parts of the AI ​​team from Machine-Learning director John Giannandrea as part of the crisis around the voice assistant Siri. At 56, the charismatic feather gauge is no longer very young-Ternus would be the long-term solution than a new Apple CEO.