Apple’s John Ternus is a 25-year veteran of the tech large, however certainly one of his first engineering gigs was at a lesser-known firm constructing digital actuality headsets.
Protection startup founder and Oculus headset creator Palmer Luckey reminisced on X a couple of product that Ternus, who is about to turn into Apple’s CEO in September, may’ve had a hand in throughout his early engineering days.
Luckey posted a photograph of an outdated V8 head mount show from Digital Analysis.
“From what I can inform, he was the lead mechanical engineer on the V8 I obtained once I was 16!,” Luckey wrote, referring to Ternus.
John Ternus, the brand new CEO of Apple, has been with the corporate for 25 years. His solely non-Apple job was 4 years within the late 90s at Digital Analysis, a tiny Digital Actuality HMD outfit.From what I can inform, he was the lead mechanical engineer on the V8 I obtained once I was 16! pic.twitter.com/qfc8Uxg9ux
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) April 26, 2026
“It was an unbelievable headset for the time,” Luckey advised Enterprise Insider.
He described the headset as well-balanced and comparatively light-weight, with a visual view that was forward of that of different shopper merchandise on the time. It primarily offered to army flight simulators for round $50,000, Luckey stated.
Ternus and Apple didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
A consumer information for the V8 printed on-line suggests the mannequin was launched in 1998, when Ternus would’ve been working on the firm. He was an engineer at Digital Analysis from 1997 to 2001, and joined Apple later that 12 months, in keeping with his LinkedIn profile.
A patent filed in 1995 and issued in 1998, throughout Ternus’s time at Digital Analysis, describes a similar-looking product, a digital show equipment to be used in a digital actuality system. It supported the attachment of video shows.
Ternus is finest identified immediately as Apple’s {hardware} boss, notably for engaged on AirPods and the iPad amongst different merchandise, and because the incoming CEO.
His appointment marks the return to a product-minded chief like Steve Jobs. Present CEO Tim Prepare dinner’s background is in operations.
The tech large made its debut within the high-tech headset market in 2024 with the Imaginative and prescient Professional, which obtained a lukewarm response from the general public. Its $3,500 price ticket and lack of a killer app did not wow customers. At that time, Ternus had been in the senior vp of {hardware} engineering function for 3 years.
Regardless of an underwhelming response to the Imaginative and prescient Professional, execs like Prepare dinner and Ternus stay optimistic in regards to the product and the way forward for VR.
“Imaginative and prescient Professional is a unprecedented product,” Ternus stated in a Tom’s Information interview earlier this month. “It is like we reached into the longer term and pulled it into the current.”
