Sources: John Ternus has effectively become Apple's design chief, working in the studio several times a week; OLED touch-screen MacBook Pro will be much lighter

If you buy a new MacBook Pro with an OLED screen, it will be significantly lighter.

John Ternus, Apple's CEO, has taken a significantly more hands-on role in the company's design teams, including industrial design and human interface. This involvement began before he officially became CEO and has intensified since. Ternus now reportedly works directly with the design studio multiple times a week, a notable increase from former CEO Tim Cook's infrequent visits. The company has been experiencing talent drain, with employees leaving for companies like Meta and OpenAI. To address this, Apple has promoted junior designers and hired new external talent. Despite the departure of Jony Ive and the subsequent lack of a dedicated Chief Design Officer, Molly Anderson and Steve Lemay are leading the industrial design and human interface teams, respectively, with Ternus serving as the ultimate design decision-maker.

Apple's product development is increasingly driven by its CEO, John Ternus, indicating a shift in design leadership away from a single executive to a more integrated approach under the CEO's direct purview. This hands-on involvement suggests a prioritization of design as a core company tenet, even without a traditional Chief Design Officer role. The strategy also appears to be a response to a challenging talent market, prompting internal development and recruitment to maintain Apple's design edge.

This consolidation of design oversight under Ternus, combined with efforts to rebuild the design teams, signals a renewed focus on iterative hardware innovation, potentially impacting product lifecycles and feature integration. The move may also suggest a more cautious approach to major design overhauls, favoring refinement and evolution of existing aesthetics. Competitors will likely monitor Apple's ability to maintain its design leadership with this new management structure.