Apple CEO John Ternus on the most profound change at iPhone maker over the last 20 years: ‘ Top of the list, of course…’

Apple’s approach to product development has shifted dramatically over the past two decades, moving away from designing hardware around off-the-shelf components and toward building proprietary technology entirely from the ground up. A video of John Ternus from 2023 has resurfaced online, in which the Apple CEO – who was senior vice president of hardware engineering at that time – is seen reflecting on one of the most significant shifts the iPhone maker has undergone over the last 20 years. In the 2023 interview with CNBC, Ternus pointed to the aggressive push toward in-house engineering as the defining strategic shift of the modern era. He said that above all proprietary technology, custom Apple silicon tops the list.“When I started, the way we tended to make products was we were using technologies from other companies and we were effectively building the product around that. We made these beautiful products, but they were constrained by what was available,” Ternus can be seen saying.

Custom Silicon at the ‘Top of the List’

While that approach produced iconic consumer devices, it placed hard technical ceilings on what hardware teams could build, as per Ternus. That external dependence has steadily disappeared over the last twenty years as Apple brought critical component architectures, like silicon and modems, inside its own laboratories.“One of the most – if not the most – profound changes at Apple over the last 20 years is how we now do so many of the technologies in-house. Top of the list, of course, is our silicon, which as Johnny said from the very beginning, we’re thinking about how these pieces are going to come together to make the best possible product for our customers,” Tetanus said.By designing processors tailored exclusively for its own operating systems and device chassis, Apple has moved over earlier hardware limitations, giving designers and engineers full control over performance, efficiency and system integration.Recently, Apple launched the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max powered by Apple A20 Pro, an advanced 2-nanometer mobile chip that has been built by TSMC, features a 6-core CPU configuration and 7-core GPU processor.