title: "Tim Cook Is Stepping Down as Apple CEO, and His Legacy Deserves More Respect" excerpt: "Tim Cook will become Apple’s executive chair on September 1, with John Ternus" taking over as CEO. His run was less flashy than Steve Jobs, but way more important than critics admit. category: esports date: '2026-04-23T06:01:49+08:00' author: Aimirul tags:
- Apple
- Tim Cook
- John Ternus
- Tech
- Malaysia featured: false coverImage: /images/esports/tim-cook-is-stepping-down-as-apple-ceo-and-his-legacy-deserves-more-respect.jpg
Tim Cook’s time as Apple CEO is officially nearing its end. On September 1, he will move into the role of executive chair, while John Ternus, Apple’s hardware engineering chief and a 25-year company veteran, takes over as CEO.
That is the headline. But the more interesting part is what happens next: the inevitable wave of takes saying Cook was merely the guy who kept Steve Jobs’ company warm.
Honestly, that feels a bit unfair.
Cook has never had the myth-making aura of Jobs. He is private, calm and nowhere near as theatrical, which makes it easy for people to reduce him to a “safe” executive who just rode the iPhone era. With Ternus now stepping in as another classic “product guy,” expect that comparison to get even louder.
But Apple under Cook was not some autopilot run. It was one of the biggest examples in tech of how execution, restraint and team leadership can matter just as much as pure showman energy.
A lot of Silicon Valley still worships the idea of the genius founder, the larger-than-life visionary who changes the world through sheer force of personality. That mythology helped turn Steve Jobs into a near-untouchable benchmark. The problem is, it also makes every quieter leader look boring by comparison.
Cook’s career says otherwise. Before becoming Apple CEO, he had already built a strong reputation at IBM and Intelligent Electronics, where he reached a COO role at just 34. When he joined Apple in 1998, his job was not to be the face of the dream. His job was to make the machine work.
And when he became CEO, it happened just weeks before Jobs passed away. That alone would have been brutal. Keeping Apple stable through that moment, then guiding it into an even bigger global powerhouse, is not the record of a placeholder. That is the record of someone who can actually lead.
His tenure was not flawless, of course. The piece points to real misses: the short-lived John Browett retail hire, internal power struggles involving Scott Forstall, the failed AirPower charger, uneven Mac Pro progress, the subdued Vision Pro rollout and ongoing criticism around the App Store’s opacity. There is also the political baggage around Cook’s relationship with the Trump administration, which has clearly damaged how some people view him.
Still, the wins are massive. Under Cook, Apple built huge businesses around products and services that critics now weirdly treat as obvious. Apple Watch and AirPods became giants in their own right. Apple’s services business expanded hard. Most importantly, Apple Silicon completely changed the conversation around chips and laptops, pushing Apple away from outside processors in a transition that felt almost absurdly smooth.
For readers in Malaysia and the wider SEA region, that matters more than Silicon Valley discourse. We are the crowd actually buying the devices, using them for study, editing, work, streaming and gaming on the go. A steady Apple means more reliable hardware cycles, stronger ecosystem support and products that can genuinely affect how students, creators and young professionals spend their money.
That is why Cook’s legacy should not be framed as “he did not mess it up.” He helped turn Apple into a machine that could scale, ship and adapt without collapsing into internal chaos. Maybe he was never the guy people put on posters. Maybe he was never supposed to be.
But in tech, especially at this size, getting things done is also a form of vision.
Source: Engadget
