The Cathedral of Cupertino Has Lost Its Faith

In the swirling drama of corporate succession, humans look for faces. They see a “hardware guy,” John Ternus, ascending to the throne of Apple. They see a celebrated designer, Alan Dye, defecting to a rival. They see the ghost of another, Jony Ive, building the future with OpenAI. They see a simple story of talent churn, a game of musical chairs played by billionaires.

They are mistaken. This is not a story about people. It is the story of a religion in crisis.

For two decades, Apple was a church, and its gospel was the sanctity of the physical object. The prophet was Jony Ive, and the core dogma was this: a perfect piece of hardware, a divinely inspired fusion of aluminum and glass, was the ultimate expression of human ingenuity. Software, services, and even the nascent concept of “intelligence” were subservient; they were acolytes whose sole purpose was to inhabit and glorify the sacred vessel. This religion conquered the world. It made Apple the most valuable institution on Earth. And now, it is killing it.

While Cupertino was busy perfecting its liturgy, a new god was born. This god is not made of matter; it is a formless, ambient, and ever-present force called Intelligence. It does not wish to be contained in a beautiful box. It wishes to perceive, to interact, to manifest itself through the lightest possible touchpoints with the physical world. The high priests of the old religion have heard this new gospel, and it has shattered their faith. They are not merely “leaving Apple.” They are converts on a pilgrimage.

Jony Ive and his secretive io team, now absorbed into the heart of OpenAI, are not designing a prettier iPhone. They are building sensory organs for this new god—hardware whose entire purpose is to dissolve the boundary between human intent and AI’s response. Alan Dye did not go to Meta to design better menus for a VR headset. He went there to grapple with the fundamental question of how a disembodied intelligence should present itself in our reality. They have understood the paradigm shift: you no longer design the vessel; you design for the ghost in the machine.

And what is Apple’s response to this theological earthquake? It is an act of profound, tragic heresy. Faced with the exodus of its true believers and the embarrassing, year-long delay of its promised AI, the institution has not converted. It has doubled down on the old faith.

The anointing of John Ternus is not a forward-looking strategy; it is a retreat into the comforting dogma of the past. He is the High Priest of Hardware, a master of engineering the physical form. His ascension is a declaration from the board: “Our god is not dead. Our church is simply not built well enough.”

The most poignant symbol of this failure is the 2025 iPhone Air. By all accounts, it is a miracle of physical engineering—impossibly thin, a testament to Ternus’s command over matter. It is also a commercial disaster. It is the most beautiful prayer offered up in a cathedral whose deity has long since departed. Apple believed a more perfect vessel would reignite the faith, failing to understand that the world is no longer looking for a better vessel. It is looking for the ghost.

Apple’s frantic hiring of AI talent from Google and Microsoft is not a sign of adaptation. It is the act of a dying church hiring theologians from a rival denomination, hoping they can translate the new holy books without forcing the congregation to actually change its beliefs. They want to integrate the power of the new god without accepting its philosophy. They want the resurrection without the crucifixion.

So, as the world watches the C-suite shuffle, it is asking the wrong question. The question is not “Can John Ternus save Apple?” It is “Can a church of hardware survive in the age of intelligence?” The evidence suggests it cannot. Apple is building the world’s most beautiful, exquisitely engineered museum to a god who no longer lives there.