How Apple going forward without Steve Jobs

The passing of Steve Jobs impacted everyone in unexpected ways, and rightly so. With Jobs gone, the focus turns to how Apple will fare going forward without that genius. I have stayed out of the speculation about Apple without Steve Jobs, but a conversation I had yesterday drove home where I think Apple is at risk. There is no question that Apple has a lot of talented people to continue producing outstanding products.

Of Steve Jobs’ many strengths overseeing Apple’s product development, his refusal to release products that didn’t live up to his expectations is legendary.--There are stories told about Jobs killing products just prior to launch, sending the team back to the drawing board to start again. Jobs would not follow the standard industry practice of releasing a product that didn’t fully meet customer’s needs, and then fixing it later. There is no doubt this is a reason Apple’s products have been received so well by customers.

With Jobs gone, even with the outstanding design team at Apple and all of the great engineers, it is not clear who will step up in two areas. Firstly, is there anyone at Apple that can recognize a product that is not quite good enough to the level that Jobs did? Steve Jobs did all of those things at Apple, and the company’s reputation and product lines reflect that. Apple didn’t become one of the largest companies in the world by accident, it was a direct result of offering superior products.

Hopefully Tim Cook and all the executives at Apple will be willing to do what it takes to prevent compromises in the company’s products. Steve Jobs tormented Apple’s competitors for years with his refusal to produce products “just good enough”. Steve Jobs was one of the very few in business that could do that. This is Apple’s biggest exposure without Jobs. Jobs' biggest issue with modern televisions, according to Walter Isaacson, was their "complicated remote controls."

Isaacson said he chose not to go into detail about Apple's future products in his book, in particular how they might relate to the interest of Jobs in TVs, textbooks and photography. Wall Street analyst Shaw Wu with Sterne Agee also said in October that while Jobs was "very excited" about the prospect of a true Apple TV, the project remains held up by content licensing deals that the company feels are necessary to release a competitive product. George Clooney is up for the role of the late Steve Jobs in a planned biopic, according to a report. Wyle, as some readers may recall, played Jobs in Pirates of Silicon Valley, a movie that aired on TNT in 1999.