[MrFlowtastic]

correct, but again, steve jobs wasn't a one-man show at apple; otherwise they wouldn't be where they are at today. A lot of the designs of the apple products from the past 10 years came at the hands of jonathan ives, who still works for the company. Tim cook has been the right-hand mand of jobs for 13 years, who is now ceo. They've got inventors and innovators and designers pilled high and deep. They're losing the face, but not the heart of the company.

Something to keep in mind. I'm not downplaying steve jobs: He did a **** of a job leadership wise bringing apple from $9 to $376 a share in 10 years. But any company with that much capital, talent, and support of the image of steve jobs means that in a few years they won't be "scrambling to innovate;" they'll continue to be successful because steve jobs, for the most part, was the salesman of the bunch in recent years. Other tech legends helped invent and design the products.

Also,



you really think 1 single person is solely responsible for research, development, design, and production of two of apple's biggest selling products and that a $350 billion company won't have the talent or resources to continue innovating?

exactly... The above is all that can be said

[jthep]

It won't happen overnight, since Apple's product line has in all likelihood already been designed for the upcoming year or two. But if anyone here thinks Tim Cook can address legions of Macheads at Mac World and get them amped like Steve Jobs, you are delusional.

Also Tim Cook is not an inventor he is just a businessman. Maybe a great businessman, but it will take more than a great businessman to keep Apple as relevant and popular as it is now. Jobs from what I understand is a perfectionist and a visionary, how do you quantify that?

Apple is not doomed or anything, far from it, but I think its best years are behind them now, this is the end of an era that will never be equaled again...

[Eumaeus]

But if anyone here thinks Tim Cook can address legions of Macheads at Mac World and get them amped like Steve Jobs, you are delusional.

Of the folks hauling away iPhones, iPad, and Macbook Airs from the Apple Store by the millions, I guarantee that fewer than 1% have ever watched an Apple keynote.

Believe it or not, the products sell based on their value to consumers, not on hocus-pocus, deceit, or showmanship.

Having dedicated retail stores helps a lot, too.

[TBone4eva]

I don't care what Tim Cook learned from Steve Jobs, he still isn't Steve Jobs and so Cook will eventually do things the Cook way. Steve Jobs was known for being a slave master and relentlessly pushing his people to innovate. It is not yet known if Tim Cook will follow this approach and follow it completely. Obviously Steve continuing as Chairman will help, but we don't know what level of involvement he will have as Chairman and there is a chance that, with time, Apple will begin to get complacent. Once that happens a decline is inevitable. It's not the end of the world for Apple, but it is the end of an era.

[PineappleUnderTheSea]

But mark my words, within a couple of years you will start to see what I think of as "The Steve Jobs" effect. Apple will be scrambling to innovate and it will lack perhaps the most important inventor and CEO of this generation.

Apple is first and foremost a Marketing company, they can take a good idea and turn it into something that everybody wants. It's all in the packaging, that's been their forte. This is how Jobs innovated, in the way his products are presented.

As for innovation in products, I'm not 100% sure you need someone like Jobs: he left Apple in '85, and for the next 10 years came out with popular products like the Powerbook, a whole series of Macs, and even the Newton, which was the ancestor to PDAs. But during that time, they did market their products poorly, so it's a good thing Jobs came back to take care of that aspect and focus the vision.

[jthep]

Apple is first and foremost a Marketing company, they can take a good idea and turn it into something that everybody wants. It's all in the packaging, that's been their forte. This is how Jobs innovated, in the way his products are presented.

As for innovation in products, I'm not 100% sure you need someone like Jobs: he left Apple in '85, and for the next 10 years came out with popular products like the Powerbook, a whole series of Macs, and even the Newton, which was the ancestor to PDAs. But during that time, they did market their products poorly, so it's a good thing Jobs came back to take care of that aspect and focus the vision.

Is that a serious response??? Apple has existed since the late 1970's, it only struggled from around 1985-1997, you know the time frame Jobs left the company? Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy, then Jobs returned and he he made it the biggest company in the world!

Apple has only been successful while Jobs has been heavily involved in product development, marketing, and the leadership of the company.

Apple became irrelevant when Jobs left the first time, while I highly doubt Apple will ever be completely irrelevant again in my lifetime, I think its golden age has come and gone with the end of the Steve Jobs era...

[PineappleUnderTheSea]

Is that a serious response??? Apple has existed since the late 1970's, it only struggled from around 1985-1997, you know the time frame Jobs left the company? Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy, then Jobs returned and he he made it the biggest company in the world!

I agree that Jobs made Apple what it is today, but let's look at his accomplishments before his return: the Apple IIe was really the bread winner in the early 80s. Then came the Apple III, which was a flop. Then came the Lisa, which was a flop. This brings us to '84, which gave us the Mac, which was initially a flop (it was dismissed as a toy). Then Jobs leaves Apple. The Mac became successful later on due to better software, but under Jobs you had several computers that were not so successful, and might have contributed to the struggles the company had later on.

So who knows how things would have gone if he would have stayed in power. His experience with NeXT and Pixar probably shaped him into the leader he is today.

In any case, I do agree with you (even though I'm being difficult), Apple has become synonymous with Jobs, it will be hard to separate the two.

[sookster54]

I had an Apple IIc and Lisa and IIgs back in the early 80's since IBMs were way too expensive, the IIgs was alright but Radio Shack's Tandy blew it out of the water when it came out. I used Macs throughout most of my early career back in the 90's, I still didn't think they were that great, I used Macs at work/school and PCs at home, I once had a MacBook someone gave me(shaped like an apple) and I sold it a few months later. The MacBook Pro and Air are nice but are 3x the price of a similar laptop that has the same components- although Mac OS X Leopard brings nice features (that I can find also in Linux) such as widgets.

[Economist101]

So who knows how things would have gone if he would have stayed in power. His experience with NeXT and Pixar probably shaped him into the leader he is today.

You do realize that SJ's first and only stint as Apple CEO began in 1997, right?