Technologies

Apple CEO Stepping Down? Tim Cook Is Now 65, Sparking Succession Talk

Here are a few potential candidates reportedly being considered to fill the chief executive role once Tim Cook decides to retire.

Tim Cook turned 65 on Nov. 1, and talks have been growing around the question of who his successor as Apple CEO could be. Cook has made no announcement that he’ll be retiring, but according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the tech giant is working behind the scenes to ensure a seamless transition when the time does come.

Cook replaced Steve Jobs in 2011, and after a period of uncertainty, Cook ushered Apple into its most profitable era. Stock-watching website Stocktwits reports that the company’s stock has increased by around 1,800% since Cook took over leading the company.

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Jobs may have introduced devices like the iPhone into everyday use that changed how we interact with technology, but Cook expanded on the Apple experience. Under his guidance, the company built upon Apple’s smartphone by introducing subscription services and more mobile products, including earbuds and wearables.

He introduced Apple Pay, Beats headphones became part of the company’s ecosystem, the Apple Watch launched 10 years ago, and Apple even entered the entertainment business, producing original Oscar-winning movies and Emmy-winning TV shows through Apple TV Plus.

Read more: Best iPhone in 2025: Here’s Which Apple Phone You Should Buy

We should reiterate that the notion of Cook stepping down is pure speculation at this point. We don’t know what Apple’s CEO is currently planning or what his thoughts about retirement may be. That said, there are a handful of contenders who have reportedly been part of the succession conversation.

Potential Apple CEO contenders

Apple likely has «a solid bench of successors» that the company’s board has been developing, says Bryan Ma, VP of Devices Research at IDC.

«But the anxiety gets amplified when there isn’t clear visibility for such a valuable and iconic company,» Ma says. «Compounding the challenge is the fact that the bar has been set by big rock stars like Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. The next generation of leaders have very big shoes to fill.»

John Ternus, Apple’s current vice president of Hardware Engineering, was top of Gurman’s list. Ternus has been with the tech giant for more than two decades, so he has the knowledge and experience for a chief executive upgrade. There would be value in having an engineer behind the wheel.

Ternus appeared during the September Apple event to introduce the iPhone Air. At 50, he’s the same age Cook was when he took over as Apple CEO.

Other potential contenders are also being considered, including Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering; Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing; and Jeff Williams, the company’s former chief operating officer, according to a report by Apple Insider. On Oct. 10, Bloomberg reported that Federighi also will soon be overseeing the Apple Watch operating system watchOS, while Ternus will be overseeing Apple Watch hardware engineering once Williams departs at the end of the year.

Federighi has been with Apple for a long time and has the public speaking experience — frequently speaking during Apple Events — that would be vital if he replaced Cook as CEO. Considering his current role, Joswiak has a more marketing perspective and a broader overview of the company and may not be as hands-on with the tech as Ternus and Federighi. And according to Gurman, Williams was viewed as a shoo-in to be Cook’s replacement until his role as COO was announced to be ending. (He’s now Apple’s senior vice president of design, watch and health.) Cook held the position of chief operating officer before he replaced Jobs as CEO in 2011. Sabih Khan will be stepping into that COO role, which also puts his name in the running.

When Cook steps down, Apple will undoubtedly have a pool of qualified talent to choose from to take up the leadership mantle. Who exactly will take the mantle remains to be seen.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Technologies

Google, Meta and Amazon Join Global Pact to Fight Rising Online Scams

The companies will share fraud intelligence and coordinate responses as AI makes scams faster, cheaper and harder to detect.

Modern online scams operate across multiple platforms, perhaps spanning social media, messaging apps, email and online marketplaces. Google, Meta and Amazon are among 11 tech, retail and payments companies that have signed a new agreement to combat online scams by sharing threat intelligence across platforms, Axios first reported Monday.

The initiative, called the Industry Accord Against Online Scams & Fraud, is designed to improve how companies detect and respond to fraud that spans multiple services. Participants say they will exchange signals, such as scam-linked accounts and fraudulent domains, and coordinate enforcement actions.

By sharing intelligence in near real time, companies hope to identify these scams earlier and stop them before they spread.

The effort reflects how modern scams operate. A victim might encounter a fake celebrity investment ad on social media, move to a messaging app where the scammer builds trust, then faces prompts to send money through a fraudulent website, payment app or crypto wallet — spanning multiple companies’ ecosystems.

Google said it now blocks hundreds of millions of scam-related results every day using AI, underscoring how both attackers and defenders are increasingly relying on the same technology. Meta removed more than 159 million scam ads in 2025 and is expanding AI tools to detect impersonation and warn users.

Online scams are growing rapidly, in part because generative AI has lowered the barrier to entry. AI can be used not only to produce realistic phishing emails but also to clone voices and deepfake videos that impersonate executives, public figures and even family members.

The agreement is voluntary and doesn’t create new legal obligations, but it comes after regulators’ increased pressure on tech platforms to address fraud more aggressively. The companies say they will begin building frameworks for reporting and intelligence-sharing, though it’s not yet clear how quickly those systems will be deployed or how effective they will be in practice.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, March 18

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for March 18.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I thought it was a fairly easy one, but read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Word before «card,» flood» or «photography»
Answer: FLASH

6A clue: Joust weapon
Answer: LANCE

7A clue: Brain, heart or lungs
Answer: ORGAN

8A clue: «Frozen» reindeer
Answer: SVEN

9A clue: What can be found on frozen roads or frozen margaritas
Answer: SALT

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Follow a dentist’s recommendation
Answer: FLOSS

2D clue: Baby bug
Answer: LARVA

3D clue: Shape made in the snow
Answer: ANGEL

4D clue: Very little
Answer: SCANT

5D clue: Egg layer
Answer: HEN

Technologies

Amazon Speeds Up Delivery Even More With 1- and 3-Hour Options

The retailer says the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities, with discounted shipping for Prime members.

Same-day delivery apparently isn’t fast enough for some Amazon shoppers. The retail giant said on Tuesday it’s adding new shipping options that will get products to front doors within a one- or three-hour window.

The company said in its announcement that the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities across the US, while the three-hour option is now live in more than 2,000 areas. Amazon’s web page at amazon.com/getitfast shows whether those options are available to shoppers for their location. More than 90,000 products will be available for those shipping windows, the company said.

For those who can’t get those services (including the author of this post, who lives between Austin and San Antonio in Texas), a message will display: «3-hour delivery is currently unavailable. Check back at a later time or shop products with Same-Day delivery below.»

Pricing for the faster delivery options is not cheap: It’ll cost you $20 for one-hour delivery and $15 for three-hour delivery for those without an Amazon Prime account, or $10 and $5 for customers who subscribe to Prime.

Last year, the company rolled out faster Amazon delivery options to 4,000 additional areas.

In a video of the podcast Learn and Be Curious with Doug Herrington, hosted by Amazon’s CEO of worldwide stores, Kandace Kapps, the director of the company’s same-day strategy team, spoke in more detail about the challenges of fast shipping. Kapps discussed shifts in customer buying habits over the last few years, such as more people buying household essentials like toilet paper on Amazon.

She said that Amazon can deliver so quickly by placing same-day delivery hubs close to customers in metro areas and by getting products ready to ship within 15 minutes, aided by warehouse robots.

«I think customers are going to continue to get magically surprised by how fast we can deliver to their doorstop,» Kapps said.

Herrington said fast shipping increases sales: «When we speed up the service, the probability that somebody buys a product from us goes up.»

Other retailers, including Walmart, have been adding same-day delivery options or exploring other ways to speed up shipping times to compete with Amazon.

Removing buyers’ moments of hesitation

Part of Amazon’s strategy, which has involved a massive buildout of locations, deployment of thousands of trucks, deals with other delivery services and investment in logistics software, is actually pretty simple: being there when people need last-minute items or make impulse buys.

«It’s about removing the last moment where you would’ve reconsidered the purchase,» said Stephanie Carls, retail insights expert at coupon and promotional-code website RetailMeNot, a sibling site of CNET. «It changes how you shop, not just how fast you get things.»

Carls said that Amazon’s super-fast delivery is removing the timeframe when people might change their minds about a purchase.

«There used to be a gap between deciding to buy something and actually having it. That’s when you’d price check, rethink it, or decide you didn’t need it after all,» she said. «This closes that gap.»

The retail expert said that competitors, including Walmart and Target, have been speeding up delivery times in some markets. Still, they’re not matching Amazon’s scale or product range at those speeds or levels of consistency.

«And that’s what starts to make everyone else feel slow,» Carls said. «Amazon’s advantage is how tightly connected its technology, inventory and delivery networks are, which makes this level of speed more repeatable.»