In this week's Sunday Reboot, Apple's inconvenient Mac launch timing and the transition from Cook to Ternus nears its conclusion.
Sunday Reboot is a weekly column covering some of the lighter stories within the Apple reality distortion field from the past seven days. All to get the next week underway with a good first step.
An oddly earlier upgrade than normal
It is the pre-iPhone event season, and the media is hard at work preparing for what Apple will be showing off in its early September event. It's usually a busy period, with lots of pre-writing of pieces that will be adjusted and added to as Apple makes its announcements.
Except this week, Apple decided to change things up a lot. It announced some products way earlier than we expected.
Cue a week of writing about the Mac Studio, the Mac mini, and the new M6 generation of Apple Silicon.
To people covering Apple, this meant a sudden influx of launches to analyze and write about at length. This wouldn't entirely be a bad thing, except that we were expecting Mac stuff to arrive either during the September event or in October.
The Mac preparations usually happen after the iPhone launch posts. This meant the Mac posts this week were created with no pre-made elements, no prep work. Doing it live.
However, one thing did pop into my head about this week's Mac launch. Why did Apple do this now?
Mac Studio, one of Apple's August updates.
Someone speculating on Apple's current situation may see it as an attempt by Apple to shake up how it launches products even more. After all, it's already separated the Pro and non-Pro iPhone launches, so other changes are fair game.
The impending Ternus change could be a license for Apple to switch things up even more.
There's also the idea that Apple would rather use its events for bigger product launches, like its new smart home items. They would certainly rank higher than a spec-bump update.
However, looking back over Apple's launches in recent years, we also see that it's not entirely a new phenomenon for the company.
The last time Apple launched a product in August was an iMac in 2020. Since then, it has launched Mac products in June and July, such as the M2 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air in 2022, as well as the MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, and Mac Studio updates in 2023.
There was a HomePod mini update in July 2024, but nothing Mac-based during the summers of 2024 and 2025. That doesn't mean Apple gave up on them, as this week's Mac launches have confirmed.
The real question is whether Apple has more products that it could put out in October to warrant a second event. With some of its Mac lineup already announced, that reduces the potential pool of Mac updates.
With this year introducing a folding iPhone that will eat into the September event's time, we may see Apple keeping its OLED iPad mini update for the October one, alongside a much smaller collection of MacBook launches.
This early batch of Mac launches could well be in service of creating two events that have far fewer products on show.
For us at least, it helps spread the stress out a little.
Cook out for Ternus
The week ahead will be a major one for Apple's history. Apple CEO Tim Cook is vacating his role for a similar board-based one, and giving it up for hardware chief John Ternus to take over.
It's a transition that we have known about for months, thanks to Apple's decision to announce the change in advance. But as the changeover date draws near, you can expect an awful lot of coverage about it.
Looking to the past, there's going to be discussions about Cook's legacy, reminiscing about key moments at the company, and picking apart what he got right and wrong.
Then there's the other side of the coin. Articles explaining who Ternus is, speculation on how the company could change, and a lot about potential executive team changes.
From Apple itself, you're not going to get much of a song or dance about the situation.
Pikachu at Apple Park.
Sure, there will be press releases about Cook's role shift, as well as one about Ternus becoming CEO. Cook will also take to social media to thank Apple employees for their work, and Apple's fans too.
But really, this week ahead is going to be a gradual introduction of Ternus to the public. A very gradual one, that has so far involved Pikachu.
Apple will want to gently break in Ternus being in charge, because not everyone knows about this. At September's special event, despite the long wind-up period, people are still going to see Ternus and ask who he is in complete surprise.
Maybe Apple could do its own version of the "Doctor Who" regenerations as a pre-announcement skit.
Last week's Sunday Reboot talked about the leaked video for the AirPods Pro with Cameras, and how they could be the best smart glasses for people who wear glasses.
