Apple's New CEO John Ternus is Making Product Design a 'Major Priority'

Since becoming Apple's CEO last month, John Ternus has made product design a "major priority," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

"Ternus already had some involvement with the design studio as Apple's head of hardware engineering, given the close coordination required between the two functions," he said, in his Power On newsletter today. "Since becoming CEO, however, he has immersed himself in the industrial design and human interface teams."

Ternus goes "hands-on" in Apple's design studio "several times a week, sometimes visiting multiple times in a single day," whereas Apple's former CEO Tim Cook typically visited the studio for "about an hour once a month, at most," according to Gurman.

Unlike Cook, who is better known as a supply chain expert, Ternus comes from an engineering background. As such, Gurman said that Ternus is largely leaving Apple's finances to financial chief Kevan Parekh and its supply chain to operations chief Sabih Khan, giving him more time to focus on engineering and design.

All in all, Apple now has a product person running the show.