What a new era could bring for Apple

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Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down after nearly 15 years at the helm of one of the world’s largest and most successful tech companies.

As he steps into the role of executive chairman, he’s being replaced by senior VP of hardware engineering John Ternus, a 25-year veteran at the firm.

So how will we view Cook’s legacy at Apple? And what next for one of the world’s most important games platforms?

The good: Cook has been a great steward for Apple in growing its riches, maintaining its leadership position in hardware while building a multi-billion dollar services business, which includes Apple Arcade. It’s currently worth $4 trillion and no, it’s not winning big tech’s AI war. And apropos of nothing, but Apple TV has shows Netflix can only dream of.

For all the problems I’ll mention here, they don’t currently show up on Apple’s bottom line. It reported a record $143.8 billion in revenue in its fiscal 2026 first quarter.

The bad: Let’s be honest, as a steward of one of the world’s most important games platforms, Apple hasn’t been good to publishers. App Tracking Transparency cut the legs off an industry built on user acquisition. Then, in the name of privacy, it used ATT to build its own massive ads unit. But this is modus operandi for big tech when it comes to games versus chasing greener pastures (see Facebook’s browser games business).

Neither the App Store or Google Play really set a gold standard for discovery, for both users and publishers, in the way that Netflix does for TV and film or Steam does for PC (some might disagree on the latter’s success!). And is Apple Games even doing anything since its launch?

The ugly: Apple’s big hardware play under Tim Cook was the Vision Pro - a bet on the future of computing that was a total disaster. It reportedly shipped 45,000 units in Q4 2025. There’s a chance that investment could pay off in future if AR glasses take off. But we might be a couple Silicon Valley buzzword cycles off from that one. I think it (checks notes) comes after robotics. Apple has also failed thus far with Apple Intelligence after a botched initial attempt at rolling it out on iPhone.

Meanwhile, Apple’s behaviour defending its revenue share and anti-steering policies has made it a villain of the games industry. On the one hand, what would we expect Apple to do? It was hardly going to simply capitulate to regulators and Epic Games’ lawsuits.

But the attempts to avert change at every turn and develop ever-increasingly complex rules has harmed its reputation and further empowered the direct-to-consumer movement. And arguably, Apple might actually be worse off here than if it had engaged seriously with these challenges. Its behaviour saw the App Store cracked open entirely in the US.

What’s next: It’s easy to look at Apple appointing someone with a hardware background to speculate that the company might return to its days of innovation. Perhaps the biggest challenge is how Apple fits into the current AI trend - though Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas doesn’t see the iPhone getting disrupted at all.

As for Apple’s attitude to games, we can dream, but things will probably remain much the same. Occasional announcements and demos while brushing the business aside as it chases other ventures.

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