Where Does John Ternus Land on accessibility?
Ben Lovejoy posted a synopsis for 9to5 Mac of Mark Gurman’s profile of John Ternus for Bloomberg. I don’t have a Bloomberg subscription, so I can neither read the story nor Gurman’s Power On newsletter. Thus, Lovejoy’s Cliff’s Notes version was helpful.
One bit about Ternus, Apple’s SVP of hardware engineering, stood out to me.
“Last year he took control of a secretive unit developing robots, including a tabletop device with a screen that swirls to focus on a speaker moving around the room during a FaceTime call. (It’s slated for release as early as next year.) He has taken a bigger role in Apple’s product marketing, sometimes personally editing copy for the website and product event materials, and has become central to the company’s work to make its devices more environmentally sustainable,” Gurman reported. “Ternus has also assumed oversight of the hardware and software design teams, making him the key liaison between Apple’s vaunted design organization and senior management—meaning he’s already one of the most influential people in the company’s history.”
The immense potential for robotics to engender greater accessibility notwithstanding, reading this passage got me wondering about how, if and when Apple publicly announces its succession plan for Tim Cook, Ternus will embrace disability inclusion vis-a-vis accessibility. To a man, I’m confident Ternus, as with everyone else on the company’s executive team, is all-in on supporting Sarah Herrlinger and team in their truly life-changing efforts. Ternus is someone I’ve not yet met in person, but if and when he fills Cook’s shoes, I’d love to interview him on-the-record about his thoughts on Apple’s accessibility software and stewarding the company here into the foreseeable future. As one data point, it is not small potatoes that Cook heartily gave accessibility an explicit shoutout in his recent interview with David Pogue; indeed, to have members of the disability community acknowledged on a national news program (by way of CBS Sunday Morning) wasn’t an implementation detail. It mattered a lot to someone like yours truly, never mind the journalistic interest behind it. I’m just curious as to whether Ternus, as the purported CEO-in-waiting, will end up following Cook’s lead in standing shoulder-to-shoulder with disabled people for not only the internal work, but externally as well during occasions like Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
Later, Lovejoy continues about Ternus’ reputation inside Apple Park: “Ternus is also said to have a management and communication style very similar to that of Cook and to have a similar attitude to risk. Not everyone will see that latter point as a good thing, of course, with some arguing that the company needs to be significantly bolder. However, after initially seeming to fail to appreciate the importance of AI to the company’s future, the piece says that is no longer the case.”
