Apple Enters a New Era as Phil Schiller Steps Back From the App Store

Apple is entering a new chapter.

On September 1, 2026, John Ternus officially became the company's new chief executive officer, taking over from Tim Cook after 15 years at the helm. Cook has moved into the role of executive chairman, marking one of the most significant leadership transitions in Apple's modern history.

And as that transition takes place, another familiar face is quietly stepping back.

Phil Schiller, one of Apple's longest-serving executives and one of the people most closely associated with some of its biggest product launches, is relinquishing his responsibilities overseeing the App Store and Apple's product events.

Schiller is not leaving Apple entirely.

He will remain an Apple Fellow, working on unspecified projects within the company. But the change represents a significant reduction in his responsibilities and comes at a particularly important moment for Apple.

Schiller's connection to Apple stretches back decades.

He first joined the company in 1987, left in 1993, and returned in 1997 shortly after Steve Jobs came back. Over the years, he became one of the company's most recognizable executives, particularly through Apple's product launches and marketing.

He was involved in the public introduction of products that would eventually define Apple's modern identity, including the iPod, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

His role changed in 2020 when he stepped down as Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing and became an Apple Fellow. But he continued overseeing the App Store and Apple's major product events.

That App Store responsibility became increasingly important.

The App Store is no longer simply a place where iPhone users download applications. It has become one of the central pieces of Apple's enormous services business, connecting developers with billions of users and generating substantial revenue for the company.

Schiller took over responsibility for the App Store in 2015, putting him at the center of one of Apple's most valuable and complicated businesses.

His tenure also coincided with some of the App Store's most difficult years.

Apple faced growing regulatory pressure around its control over the platform, particularly over how developers pay for digital goods and how much Apple takes from transactions.

One of the most prominent battles came from Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, which sued Apple in 2020 over its App Store rules and payment system.

The legal dispute became part of a much larger global debate about the power of technology platforms and whether companies like Apple should be allowed to control the distribution and payment systems surrounding their ecosystems.

At the same time, regulators in different countries began demanding changes to Apple's App Store policies.

In Europe, Apple's relationship with regulators became particularly complicated following the introduction of the Digital Markets Act, which forced the company to make significant changes to how its platform operates.

Schiller was therefore not simply overseeing an app marketplace.

He was managing one of the most strategically important and heavily scrutinized parts of Apple's business.

Now that responsibility is being reorganized.

The App Store is moving under Apple's Services organization, led by Eddy Cue, who previously oversaw the App Store before Schiller took over in 2015. Carson Oliver, a longtime member of Apple's App Store team, is expected to handle its day-to-day operations. Apple's product events will also receive new leadership, with Schiller's deputy Nola Weinstein taking over that responsibility.

The timing is difficult to ignore.

Schiller's move comes as Apple begins life under a new CEO.

Tim Cook's departure from the CEO position is itself a historic moment. He became CEO in 2011 after Steve Jobs stepped down and went on to lead Apple through an extraordinary period of growth.

Under Cook, Apple expanded far beyond the iPhone.

The company developed major new product categories such as the Apple Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro while turning services such as Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud and the App Store into an increasingly important part of its business.

Apple says its annual revenue grew from $108 billion in fiscal 2011 to more than $416 billion in fiscal 2025, while its active installed base has grown to more than 2.5 billion devices.

Now, that era is over.

John Ternus takes control with a very different background.

Unlike Cook, whose reputation was built heavily around operations, supply chains and business execution, Ternus is an engineer who has spent much of his career working on Apple's hardware.

He joined Apple in 2001 and eventually became senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, overseeing work across products including the iPhone, iPad, AirPods and Apple Watch.

That makes his appointment particularly interesting.

Apple is entering a period in which artificial intelligence, new hardware categories and changing consumer expectations could reshape the technology industry.

The company has faced criticism for moving more cautiously in AI than competitors such as Google, Microsoft, Meta and OpenAI.

At the same time, Apple is expected to pursue new hardware opportunities, including products that could eventually expand the company's ecosystem beyond its current categories.

Ternus therefore inherits a company that is enormously successful but operating in a technology landscape that is changing rapidly.

And he is not inheriting an entirely unchanged leadership team.

Schiller's move follows several other high-profile departures and transitions involving longtime Apple executives.

Jeff Williams, Apple's former chief operating officer, retired after 27 years. Jennifer Bailey, who spent more than two decades at Apple and played a major role in Apple Pay, is also preparing to retire. Other senior executives have moved on to new opportunities, including Vision Pro executive Paul Meade, who joined OpenAI.

Taken individually, these changes are normal for a company of Apple's size.

Taken together, they represent something more significant: a gradual change in the people responsible for running one of the world's most influential technology companies.

That doesn't necessarily mean Apple is abandoning what made it successful.

In fact, much of the company's existing leadership structure remains intact.

But leadership transitions are often about more than replacing one person with another.

They can change how a company makes decisions, where it takes risks, which technologies it prioritizes and how quickly it responds to a changing market.

For Apple, the transition is happening at a fascinating point in its history.

The company has one of the world's strongest consumer ecosystems, an enormous installed base, a powerful services business and extraordinary financial resources.

But it also faces questions that cannot simply be answered by selling another generation of iPhones.

Artificial intelligence is changing how people interact with technology.

New computing platforms are emerging.

Regulators are challenging the power of major technology companies.

And consumers increasingly expect their devices to do things that would have seemed impossible only a few years ago.

Phil Schiller's decision to step back may therefore seem like a relatively small change compared with the departure of a CEO.

It isn't.

For nearly three decades, Schiller has been part of Apple's evolution from a struggling computer company into one of the most valuable and influential technology businesses in the world.

Now he is stepping away from one of the responsibilities that kept him at the center of Apple's operations.

Tim Cook has stepped into a new role.

John Ternus has taken the CEO position.

And Phil Schiller has narrowed his responsibilities.

Three changes, happening at almost the same moment, tell a much larger story.

Apple is not simply replacing its CEO.

It is gradually passing the company from one generation of leadership to another.

And the decisions this new generation makes could determine what Apple looks like for the next decade.