Apple’s New CEO John Ternus Unveils Google AI Deal and First Foldable iPhone


CUPERTINO, California — Just eight days after succeeding Tim Cook on September 1, newly appointed Apple CEO John Ternus held his first major public appearance at the “Surprise and Shine” product event on Wednesday. The event marked a historic transition for the Silicon Valley giant, with Cook moving to the role of executive chairman after 15 years at the helm.

The upgraded assistant Siri AI can engage in multi-turn conversations and execute tasks across more than 300,000 third-party applications without requiring users to repeat background details. Apple has replaced the virtual assistant’s historically synthetic, robotic cadence with a more natural, fluid voice for this version.


Ternus, a veteran engineer who previously served as Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, played a key role in the transition to Apple Silicon. He introduced the new A20 Pro processor during his debut keynote, stating: “This is the fastest chip ever put into an iPhone.”

To power Siri AI’s advanced capabilities, Apple has forged a blockbuster partnership with Alphabet Inc.’s Google. The agreement is reportedly worth approximately $1 billion annually, with Apple utilizing Google’s Gemini large language model technology to handle complex, off-device AI requests.

The A20 Pro is the industry’s first commercial smartphone processor built on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) cutting-edge 2-nanometer (N2) process node. This transition utilizes nanosheet transistor architectures instead of traditional FinFET structures, allowing Apple to pack billions of additional transistors into the same physical die space.

Ternus framed the company’s new hardware lineup around the concept of an “ideal” personal device that is “always with you, deeply personal, and able to bring intelligence to the moments when it matters most.” The redesigned virtual assistant, now dubbed Siri AI, represents the most significant overhaul of the assistant since its initial integration into the iPhone 4S in 2011.


The integration with Google represents a pragmatic shift for Apple, which has historically prioritized proprietary software. Siri AI relies on a hybrid architecture first previewed at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, blending on-device processing for privacy-sensitive tasks with “Private Cloud Compute” infrastructure for computationally intensive queries.

The A20 Pro features a six-core CPU, divided into two high-performance “super cores” and four high-efficiency cores, yielding a 20% performance increase over the preceding A19 Pro. A new seven-core GPU delivers up to a 40% speed boost.

Siri AI will launch in beta this month for devices set to supported regions. However, Apple confirmed that the new AI features will not be available on any iPhone or iPad in the European Union at launch. While Apple did not specify the regulatory hurdles, the decision follows ongoing tensions between tech giants and European regulators over compliance with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the newly enacted AI Act, which mandate strict rules on data sharing, interoperability, and user privacy.

Cook, who led Apple for 15 years and oversaw its rise to a multi-trillion-dollar valuation after succeeding co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011, has transitioned to the role of executive chairman. Ternus used the event to unveil a sweeping transformation of the company’s product strategy, defined by a landmark artificial intelligence alliance with Google, a pioneering leap in semiconductor manufacturing, and Apple’s long-awaited entry into the foldable smartphone market.