New Apple CEO Promises Staff a Phenomenal iPhone Launch Next Week

Apple’s new chief executive John Ternus used his first staff memo on September 1 to thank Tim Cook and to talk up a product pipeline he called strong, according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman.

“We have a huge launch next week that’s going to be phenomenal,” Ternus wrote, and Gurman framed that line as a tease of the new iPhone launch while Bloomberg‘s own write-up tied it to the September 9 event Apple already put on the calendar.

Ternus opened by thanking everyone for the warm wishes on his first day as CEO, then spent a long stretch on Cook, saying he appreciated how much knowledge and experience Cook shared during the transition and, more importantly, everything Cook contributed to Apple over the years, adding that staff were lucky to have had a chief who led with his values, with decency and humanity, that they are all better for it, and that he is grateful Cook will stay on as executive chairman.

He called Apple the greatest company in the world and looked past next week at “the incredible products already in the works and the ones we haven’t even imagined yet that we’ll dream up and create together.”

Ternus came up through hardware engineering, and he already said a public hello on X the same day Gurman walked through the leadership bench he now has to run.

Apple has already set the iPhone event for Wednesday, September 9, so the memo is the new boss putting his name on a launch staff have been building for months, with more to come, he wrote.

The next iPhone is likely coming with a price increase after those memory-driven Mac and iPad hikes, so get your wallet ready if you’re upgrading, because nobody has printed a new sticker yet.