Without Jobs, what's next for Apple?

Tim Cook is an operational whiz. Philip Schiller is a marketing maven. Jonathan Ive is a design visionary.

The men at the helm of Apple are among the best at what they do. But none seems to have that spark of genius like Steve Jobs – an industry oddity studied by business school students for his creative vision, uncanny sense of what consumers want and shrewd leadership. And that’s the central issue Apple faces, now that Jobs has relinquished day-to-day control.

Apple’s breakaway success has largely been defined by Jobs’s ability to repeatedly develop ground-breaking computers and electronics. But the super-competitive marketplace ensured that the dominance of many Apple products was short-lived.

The iPhone, introduced in 2007, briefly held the title of top smartphone. Now phones using Google’s Android software have a larger share of the market. The iPad has been a runaway success, but the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy are nipping at its lead. And while Apple is expected to account for 74 percent of media tablet shipments in 2011, that portion will fall to 44 percent in 2015, according to IHS iSuppli, an industry analytics group.

As Cook takes over as chief executive, the big question is whether he and Jobs’s hand-picked team can continue to conjure up the next big thing in consumer electronics to keep the company’s success going.

“Apple is the steak, and Jobs is the sizzle. Now what do you do with a company that is so much about the sizzle?” asked Jeffrey Kagan, an independent tech industry analyst.

Apple is the globe’s second-largest company in terms of market value and has amassed a war chest of $76 billion in cash. Apple dominates entire categories of consumer electronics including tablet computers and portable music players. With new versions of the iPhone, iPad and other gadgets in development, the product pipeline is stuffed for years to come.

It’s a dream setup for a new CEO to achieve incredible success – or to fail spectacularly.

Cook, 50, is a familiar face at Apple and in the industry. A fitness buff with a Jobs-esque obsession with perfection and discipline, Cook has been with Apple for 13 years. He has overseen Apple’s massive production lines, and he temporarily led the company during Jobs’s medical leaves of absence in 2004 and 2009 for a rare form of pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant.

In a letter emailed to employees on Thursday, Cook promised that things wouldn’t change.

“I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple’s unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that – it is in our DNA,” Cook wrote.

Jobs enticed Cook away from Compaq Computer Corp. to join Apple in 1998, a time when the troubled company was on the precipice of failure. While Jobs obsessed over every facet of Apple’s products, Cook concentrated on the minute details of its business operations. His attention was a good fit in a company with a culture of perfection.

Cook built a supply chain bigger than anyone at Apple could have imagined and distributed products in a way that even Wal-Mart’s Sam Walton would envy. That allowed the company to make, for example, a quality tablet computer that few have been able to undercut in price, said Eric Bleeker, an analyst at The Motley Fool.

“Those are the fingerprints of Tim Cook right there,” Bleeker said.

Cook will have to define his own path at the company, some analysts said.

“Cook needs to be Cook. There are few people who have come around in business like Steve Jobs in literally the last 50 years, and Cook doesn’t want to be constantly compared,” said Rob Kaplan, a professor of management at Harvard Business School.

Those comparisons will be hard to shake. A mythology surrounds Jobs and his willingness to take risks, his creativity and his drive.

Rather than respond to surveys, Jobs developed ground-breaking products by relying on his instincts and own vision.

“Steve had such a great understanding of what people want but couldn’t articulate,” said Guy Kawasaki, who held the title of Apple’s chief evangelist.

No detail has been too trivial for Jobs, down to the contours of a computer mouse and the menu at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., cafeteria. The night before the iPod was revealed to reporters, Jobs found that the headphone jack didn’t make a click when you plugged something in, according to Leander Kahney, the author of “Inside Steve’s Brain.”

“He ordered the engineers to dismantle them all and put in headphone jacks that made a nice, satisfying click,” Kahney told NPR in December 2010. “So these guys stayed up all night and then had to repackage the iPods in the morning.”

A true test of Cook’s ability as CEO will be whether he can implement his own vision and attract the top-flight talent he’ll need to create Apple’s next hit devices.

“It’s going to come down to what happens when Apple has to make a new product,” said N. Venkat Venkatraman, professor in management, information technologies, at the Boston University School of Management. “If Apple doesn’t lead with the design, and some other company does and subsumes Apple ... then everyone will say Tim missed it.”

The Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News contributed to this report.

Jobs had no formal schooling in engineering, yet he’s listed as the inventor or co-inventor on more than 200 U.S. patents. Some of the significant products created under his direction:

1. Apple I (1976) — Apple’s first product was a computer for hobbyists and engineers, made in small numbers. Steve Wozniak designed it, while Jobs orchestrated the funding and handled the marketing.

2. Apple II (1977) — One of the first successful personal computers, the Apple II was designed as a mass-market product rather than something for engineers or enthusiasts. It was still largely Wozniak’s design. Several upgrades for the model followed, and the product line continued until 1993.

3. Lisa (1983) — Jobs’ visit to Xerox Corp.’s research center in Palo Alto inspired him to start work on the first commercial computer with a graphical user interface, with icons, windows and a cursor controlled by a mouse. It was the foundation for today’s computer interfaces, but the Lisa was too expensive to be a commercial success.

4. Macintosh (1984) – Like the Lisa, the Macintosh had a graphical user interface. It was also cheaper and faster and had the backing of a large advertising campaign behind it. People soon realized how useful the graphical interface was for design. That led “desktop publishing,” accomplished with a Mac coupled to a laser printer, which soon become a sales driver.

5. NeXT computer (1989) – After being forced out of Apple, Jobs started a company that built a powerful workstation computer. The company was never able to sell it in large numbers, but the computer was influential: The world’s first Web browser was created on one. Its software also lives on as the basis for today’s Macintosh and iPhone operating system.

6. iMac (1998) — When Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, the company was foundering, with an ever-shrinking share of the PC market. The radical iMac was the first step in reversing the slide. It was strikingly designed as a bubble of blue plastic that enclosed both the monitor and the computer. Easy to set up, it captured the imagination just as people across the world were having their eyes opened to the benefits of the Internet and considering getting their first home computer.

7. iPod (2001) — It wasn’t the first digital music player with a hard drive, but it was the first successful one. Apple’s expansion into portable electronics has had vast ramifications. The iPod’s success prepared the way for the iTunes music store and the iPhone.

8. iTunes store (2003) — Before the iTunes store, buying digital music was a hassle, making piracy the more popular option. The store simplified the process and brought together tracks from all the major labels. The store became the largest music retailer in the U.S. in 2008.

9. iPhone (2007) — The iPhone did for the phone experience what the Macintosh did for personal computing – it made the power of a smartphone easy to harness. Apple is now the world’s most profitable maker of phones, and the influence of the iPhone is evident in all smartphones.

10. iPad (2010) — Dozens of companies, including Apple, had created tablet computers before the iPad, but none caught on. The iPad finally cracked the code, creating a whole new category of computer practically by itself.

The Associated Press TOP EXECUTIVES

Tim Cook, CEO

Was chief operating officer. Filled in for Jobs during his medical leaves. Joined Apple Inc. in 1998. Credited with tuning Apple’s manufacturing process to solve chronic product delays and supply problems.

Philip Schiller, marketing

Worked in the shadow of Jobs, who’s been a highly visible and deeply involved in the company’s marketing and presentation. Been with Apple since 1997.

Jonathan Ive, design

Respons-ible for look and feel of hardware since 1996. Guided the design of iconic products such as the original iMac, the iPod and the iPhone.

Scott Forstall, software

One of the architects of the current Mac operating system, OS X.

The Associated Press