GoKawiilApple CEO John Ternus wants you to know that the iPhone isn’t going anywhere.
Ternus threw his weight behind the venerable device on Wednesday during his first keynote as CEO, placing it firmly at the center of Apple’s product strategy for the AI era.
“There’s no product in the world better designed to be your intelligent personal hub than iPhone,” he said.
This contrasts with the approach taken by former CEO Tim Cook, who tried time and again to convince Wall Street that Apple was more than just the iPhone.
Ternus’ pitch is also a rebuttal to pundits who have recently cast doubt on the iPhone. “The smartphone’s days are numbered,” said one headline. “The Tim Cook era is coming to a close with an existential challenge for Apple: figuring out what comes after the iPhone,” said another article.
But it’s not just about the hardware. Ternus has put the iPhone at the center of his “intelligent personal assistant” strategy, a vision that could define the company for years to come. Steve Jobs did something similar in 2001 with the Mac, less than 10 months before he announced the iPod.
At the time, many observers thought the PC’s days were numbered. At a Macworld New York keynote, Jobs called out bearish quotes from industry wonks like Walt Mossberg and the leaders of Compaq and Gateway.
“This is what everyone else is telling us. That our PC is waning if not the hole being dug,” Jobs said at the time, pointing at a tombstone for the “Beloved PC” on the screen behind him. “We don’t think the PC is dying at all. We don’t think the PC is moving away from the center at all. We think it’s evolving, just like it has since it was invented.”
“We think the PC is on the threshold of entering its third great age,” Jobs added, a prediction driven by the proliferation of digital devices at the time, including camcorders, digital cameras, and DVD players.
The Mac would form the center of a “digital hub” that would connect these disparate devices and, in Jobs’ words, “add value” to all of them.
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