Marco has enough standing within our world that it's actually a clever idea to appeal to Ternus on these terms. He'll probably be aware that it was written and the appeal is somewhat generic in its call to reverse course on some Cook-era policies.
We're all very hopeful but there's not enough information available on the outside to predict with any certainty how he'll lead.
Further, one of the other hosts is John Siracusa, the guy who wrote in-depth 18 page reviews of MacOS X releases for ArsTechnica for many years. He got a shoutout from Apple's head of software, Craig Federighi, when I attended a live interview in 2019 during the week of their World Wide Developer's Conference (hosted by John Gruber of Daring Fireball). Siracusa must have been in the first few rows because Federighi said something like, "Oh, there's Siracusa." You could label that "fan service" because everyone in that theater knows who he's talking about and it's a form of acknowledging the crowd as a community.
So, all of this is to say that Marco is one of the small number of outsiders who could write such a letter on their blog and have upper ranks of Apple hear about it and maybe, maybe not, be curious enough to see what was said. I can't do that. I don't know if you can. But Marco can. I'm glad he took a shot. Whether it means anything, we'll never know.
And yes, the release of his redesign was premature, but I'm ok with the app as my daily podcast driver right now.
It is not a tongue in cheek remark, I am genuinely curious
Why would anyone pay close attention to a sports team? A musician? A writer?
But if you read Arment's post:
> As you grow into the leader that we know you can be, I urge you, on behalf of everyone who loves computers as much as we do, to protect and cultivate this spirit of Apple’s founders as the company’s top priority:
> *We love computers. We don’t hide that — we celebrate it!
> *We use computers to enhance our minds, lives, and abilities — not to be controlled, restricted, tricked, placated, angered, or surveilled.
> *Our computers work for us, with the utmost respect for our time, attention, money, data, and privacy.
> *We are customers and owners — not resources to be harvested, annoyed, or badgered into ever more services and upsells.
> Apple leads the industry in these values, but leading doesn’t always mean excelling. Remaining true to these values requires constant diligence, honest evaluation, introspection, and the audacity and courage to effect change.
* https://marco.org/2026/04/01/letter-to-john-ternus
Perhaps if more companies had values besides "shareholder value"[1] the world would be a better place.
Does anyone here pay close attention to updates in the Linux kernel or is that pretty stupid too? (To be fair, you didn't call me stupid, but it's sorta there.)
What's Framework doing? I'm pretty jazzed about their laptops even though I don't buy them.
What about game companies that get bought by Microsoft and now people worry that the franchise they love might get killed?
I'm a nerd and I care a lot about a thing. I don't feel bad about that.
Or because you’re interested in the products and the „company community“ is fun and you like talking about it.
Historically there were so few bugs in Apple’s software that to encounter even one was a jarring experience. Now they’ve reverted to the mean, and it’s just as buggy as Windows or Android. So if you’re comparing with them, no big deal. But compared to Apple standards we’ve fallen a long way.
Yeah, what's going on? I'm confused by this choice - I would have expected a marketer. Maybe they really are doubling down on hardware for the ai age?
I would have expected a marketer.
Apple's hardware and silicon divisions are considered good not because they're competitive, but because they're uncompetitive. They keep cranking out products that far surpass their competitors. Apple is reduced to announcing the fastest CPU core in the world in a press release spec bump, every year.
Even if Tahoe is a regression from the high bar Apple set with Sequoia, it's still the best OS for regular people (sorry Linux but you know it's true). Apple's software is bad because it's merely best-in-class and not light years ahead.
Maybe I'm being too hopeful but the MacBook Neo was announced at live presentations in a few cities around the world, and Ternus did the presentation at their New York event. Perhaps the guy is also partial to live presentations? It's not impossible that Apple mostly stuck with the prerecorded presentations because Cook didn't like the old way. I wouldn't say he's the most natural presenter, he always seemed a bit uncomfortable on stage.
It's also the year the iPod was launched, which capitulated Apple from near bankruptcy a few years before to then having the cash it needed to invest in R&D on things like transitioning to Intel, creation of iPhone, etc.
Tim is fine, but there are clearly other, more powerful forces at play than "Tim Apple amaze".