John Ternus Apple CEO: AI gap & foldable iPhone

Samantha: Welcome to The State of Tech, The European Edition, Tuesday September first, 2026. I'm Samantha Lawrence.

Bob: And I'm Bob Russell. Today: John Ternus takes the helm at Apple as Tim Cook steps aside; Saudi Arabia opens LEAP 2026 with fifteen billion dollars in tech deals; OpenAI locks down its Daybreak cybersecurity platform with mandatory hardware keys; Oracle faces layoffs even as it pours tens of billions into AI data centres; and to close out, two things you can actually use today, the encrypted email service Mailbox dot org and the free open-source video editor Olive. Let's start with Apple.

John Ternus becomes Apple CEO today, inheriting a company scrambling to catch up on artificial intelligence.

Samantha: John Ternus is officially Apple's new chief executive as of today, ending Tim Cook's fifteen-year run. Cook moves up to Executive Chairman, and Ternus, an engineer by training, walks straight into Apple's biggest strategic headache: artificial intelligence. The company is still leaning on Google's Gemini to power the rebuilt Siri, which for a firm that prides itself on doing everything in-house is quite the admission. And his first big product event is just eight days away, with foldable iPhones widely expected on stage.

Bob: The engineering background matters here. Cook was an operations man who turned Apple into a supply-chain machine. Ternus made his name on hardware, on the iPhone, the iPad, the Vision Pro. So this is Apple signalling that the next chapter is about product and technical execution again, not logistics. The Siri question is the one to watch. Relying on Gemini for the rebuild is pragmatic, but it also means Google gets a foothold inside the most private device most people own. Analysts are already asking whether Apple can build a genuine in-house model that competes with what OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are shipping every few months.

Samantha: And there's a foldable iPhone rumoured for that first event, which would be Apple's biggest hardware category shift in years. For Ternus that's both a gift and a trap. A gift because it grabs attention away from the AI story. A trap because if the foldable underwhelms, the narrative immediately becomes: new CEO, no AI answer, and now no hardware wow either.

Bob: For European users the interesting question is data. If Siri routes queries through Gemini, even partly, that touches European data protection rules directly. Regulators in Ireland and France have been circling AI assistants for months, asking exactly where voice data goes and who trains on it. Apple's marketing has always been "what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone", and that line gets harder to hold when a third-party model is in the loop. Expect European data protection authorities to ask pointed questions before Christmas. And for European developers, a new CEO with a hardware bias could mean more openings for accessory makers and app builders, especially if foldables actually ship.

Samantha: The bottom line: today marks the start of the Ternus era, and the clock starts ticking immediately. Eight days to a product event, and probably eighteen months to prove Apple can do AI on its own terms.

Saudi Arabia opens LEAP 2026 in Riyadh with over fifteen billion dollars in fresh tech investments.

Bob: LEAP 2026 kicked off today in Riyadh, and Saudi Arabia used the opening to announce more than fifteen billion dollars in new technology investments and partnerships. Running alongside it is DeepFest, an AI-focused conference with over a hundred speakers covering agentic AI, robotics, and AI governance. The headline announcements include HUMAIN, the Saudi state-backed AI outfit, unveiling an open-weights Arabic language model called HUMAIN M3, and a partnership with Applied Intuition to build what they're calling the world's largest autonomous trucking network in the Kingdom by 2030.

Samantha: What's striking here is the pace and the scale. LEAP started in 2022 and has become one of the biggest tech gatherings in the world by attendance. Saudi Arabia is deliberately positioning itself as the third pole between the US and China, with cash and cheap energy as the pitch. The open-weights Arabic model is smart geopolitically, because it addresses a genuine gap: most large language models handle Arabic poorly, and an open-weights approach means researchers across the region can build on it without paying licence fees.

Bob: The autonomous trucking deal is the one that has logistics people talking. Applied Intuition is the California firm behind simulation software for self-driving vehicles, and building a trucking network across Saudi highways is a very different challenge to San Francisco streets. Long straight roads, predictable weather, and one regulator to deal with. If it works by 2030, it would be the largest deployment of autonomous freight anywhere on the planet.

Samantha: For Europe the angle is competitive pressure. European tech firms are being invited to the party, but the party is being hosted somewhere else. Saudi money is flowing into AI infrastructure, autonomous vehicles, and Arabic-language models at a speed European governments simply cannot match. Brussels is talking about sovereign AI and the AI Act, while Riyadh is signing cheques. European companies will find real partnership opportunities here, especially in AI infrastructure and automotive tech. The uncomfortable question is whether European talent starts drifting east, chasing budgets that don't exist at home.

OpenAI makes hardware security keys mandatory for its Daybreak cybersecurity platform starting today.

Samantha: Quick interruption. If you listen to The State of Tech regularly, hit that like button and subscribe, that way you'll never miss an episode. Okay, moving on.

Bob: OpenAI is tightening the screws on its Daybreak platform. From today, every individual account needs a hardware security key to log in. Daybreak is OpenAI's dedicated cybersecurity offering, giving trusted defenders access to advanced models including a cyber-specific variant. The move fits a wider pattern: AI companies rolling out stricter access controls as their most powerful models become genuinely dangerous in the wrong hands.

Samantha: Hardware keys are those small USB or NFC devices you physically plug in or tap to prove it's really you. They kill phishing dead, because an attacker can steal your password but they can't steal the physical key sitting on your desk. Making them mandatory for every account, not just enterprise customers, is a strong signal. OpenAI is essentially saying: if you want access to our frontier cyber-defence models, you accept our security floor, no exceptions.

Bob: The logic is straightforward. If you're giving defenders an AI that can analyse malware, find vulnerabilities, and reason about attack chains, you really don't want that account taken over by the very attackers it's meant to stop. And this is where the AI race is heading generally. The more capable the model, the more locked-down the access. Expect similar requirements from Anthropic and Google for their most sensitive tiers within the year.

Samantha: For Europe this lands in an interesting spot. The EU's NIS2 directive already pushes stronger authentication for critical infrastructure, and financial regulators under DORA expect similar. So European cybersecurity teams using Daybreak will find the hardware key requirement aligns neatly with what their own compliance officers are asking for anyway. The practical implication: if your security team is trialling Daybreak, budget for the keys now, because you can't log in without them from today.

Oracle weighs fresh layoffs even as it pours fifty-five billion dollars into AI data centres.

Bob: Oracle is reportedly preparing another round of layoffs today, and the context makes it particularly striking. The company's capital expenditure exploded to fifty-five point seven billion dollars in fiscal 2026, up from twenty-one point two billion the year before. That money is going almost entirely into data centres for AI customers, including a very large contract with OpenAI. Revenue is up seventeen percent to sixty-seven point four billion. And yet the stock is down more than twenty percent this year, and shareholder lawsuits have been filed.

Samantha: The tension here is fascinating. Oracle is spending more than double what it spent last year on physical infrastructure, and revenue is growing at a healthy clip. But investors are looking at the gap between spending and returns and getting nervous. Building AI data centres is enormously expensive, the electricity bills alone are eye-watering, and the payback horizon is long. Meanwhile Oracle's traditional database business needs fewer people as customers migrate to cloud.

Bob: This is a pattern we're seeing across the industry. Layoffs and record AI investment in the same quarter. The workforce Oracle needs for the AI era looks very different from the one it had for the on-premise database era. Fewer traditional sales engineers, more data centre operations, more AI specialists. The result is painful in the short term, and shareholders are not being patient.

Samantha: For European tech workers this is a warning shot. Oracle has significant operations across Europe, and the same rationalisation logic applies here. Companies rushing into AI aren't necessarily growing headcount, they're reshaping it. European works councils and unions in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Germany will be watching Oracle's next moves closely, because SAP, Capgemini and others face the same pressure to pivot workforces without breaking local labour law.

Try the encrypted German email service Mailbox dot org for a genuinely private inbox.

Bob: Right, to close out, two things you can actually use today. First up, an email service worth knowing about: Mailbox dot org. It's run out of Berlin, it's been going since the late nineties, and it's built around the idea that your inbox is nobody else's business.

Samantha: The pitch is straightforward. Mailbox dot org offers encrypted email hosting on German servers under German data protection law, with no advertising and no data mining. Users get the standard mail, calendar, contacts, and cloud storage combination, but with proper end-to-end encryption support built in via open standards like PGP. Plans start at one euro a month, which puts it in reach of anyone tired of the free-inbox trade-off where the price is your data.

Bob: What makes it interesting compared to the more famous Swiss options is the price and the toolkit. You get full IMAP and SMTP support, so it works with any mail app you already use, from Thunderbird to Apple Mail to Outlook. There's a decent web interface if you don't want to configure anything, and mobile apps for the calendar and drive. Users often highlight the spam filtering and the ability to run your own domain on it without paying extra for enterprise tiers.

Samantha: The practical case: if you're a freelancer, a journalist, a small business, or just someone who's uncomfortable with a large ad platform reading your email, this is a straight swap. You can import from Gmail or Outlook, keep your existing address forwarding while you migrate, and be fully moved within a weekend. It won't feel dramatically different day to day, and that's rather the point. Email should be boring and private, not a data source for advertisers.

Bob: One tip. If you use two-factor authentication everywhere, Mailbox dot org supports hardware keys and app-based codes, so you can lock it down properly from day one. It's the sort of thing you set up once and stop thinking about, which is the highest compliment you can pay an email service.

The free open-source video editor Olive turns any laptop into a serious video workstation.

Samantha: And the second thing to try today, a free open-source video editor called Olive. If you've been putting off learning video editing because the big-name software is expensive or overwhelming, Olive is worth a look.

Bob: Olive is a non-linear video editor, meaning you work with clips on a timeline and rearrange them freely, the way professional editors do. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and it's genuinely free with no subscription, no watermarks, and no upsell. The interface will feel familiar to anyone who has ever opened Premiere or Final Cut, timeline at the bottom, preview windows at the top, effects and clips down the side.

Samantha: The project has been rebuilt from the ground up to handle modern video formats and higher-resolution footage without the crashes that plagued earlier versions. Users report it's stable enough for real projects now, whether that's a YouTube channel, a family holiday recap, or a short film. It handles standard formats, colour correction, basic effects, and audio mixing in one place.

Bob: The realistic expectation: this won't replace a full professional suite if you're doing broadcast work or Hollywood-grade colour grading. But for the ninety percent of people who just want to cut clips together, add music, drop in some titles, and export something watchable, it does the job without asking for a credit card.

Samantha: Today we covered: John Ternus taking over as Apple CEO with AI as his biggest challenge, Saudi Arabia's LEAP 2026 announcing fifteen billion dollars in tech deals, OpenAI making hardware keys mandatory for its Daybreak cybersecurity platform, Oracle facing layoffs despite massive AI data centre spending, and two things to try yourself: the encrypted email service Mailbox dot org and the free video editor Olive.

Bob: Want to know more or react? Visit stateoftech.eu or email us at info@doorzetters.net.

Bob: State of Tech, the tech world in 15 minutes.