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Can Apple thrive without its visionary CEO?

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Of course it can. Is this 1800 when only the King has the divine right and insight to rule and lead? There are a lot of smart people at Apple and I am sure they will carry on just fine. We should stop this silly hero worship of the "captains of industry" the world is full of visionary people.

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No! Jobs is a one man show, without him Apple will slowly lose market share and eventually just be another tech company competing with the Chinese. Happy to see it happen, Apple has become the Orwellian monster it was opposed to in 1984. Best wishes to Jobs but he lost the plot about what him and Woz were about back in 1996.

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They will do fine.

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I doubt Apple can survive long without Jobs. Because Apple is as much a personality cult as it is a company. Without Jobs, it becomes an ordinary company and can not charge the charisma premium it does with him.

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spudman, WilliB. Utter nonsense. Do you think Jobs is the only creative person at Apple? Or that Apple users only care about Jobs? I use both Apple and PC and value both for their purposes. But when it comes to doing creative work, I value Apple over everything else because, unlike PS, it reliably works.

Why would creative people stop viewing working products as valuable just because Jobs is gone? It isn't religion like trying to do Christianity without the Jesus. He is a company leader. Others will come and life will go on for Apple and users will continue to suppor them.

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Personally I wouldn't jump the gun and say "whatever, anyone can run that company". A review of Apple's history will show that that more or less happened before, and the collection of CEOs that took over for him nearly drove Apple into the ground. It was him that rescued the company around 1998 with the iMac, and he has been the driving force behind the company since then.

Love him or hate him, he has a knack for running things and I'm a little apprehensive about what will happen.

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Maybe with some time off and out in the real world he will realize what he has done with his cheap numerous very antisocial ipod headphones...such a problem listening to other rude people ( more of a problem in certain countries) music on trains, airports, etc.

Get some decent in ear headphones it will only cost a couple of dollars more.

Anyway being away from the office maybe he might see this antisocial behaviour that he has helped create... remember not every where has train manners.

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Do you think Jobs is the only creative person at Apple?

Of course that's nonsense and no one said that. I think the problem might be that whoever would take the helm might not exhibit the same stubbornness and exactness which Jobs demanded. He accepted no excuses. Remember Papermaster? Apple wooed him over a few years, then, antennagate --even if not directly his doing he was out. That would not have happened at other companies.

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tkoind

Why would creative people stop viewing working products as valuable just because Jobs is gone?

Trouble is they didn't save Apple in 1997, it was ordinary consumers who liked the imac colors. Job's ideas appeal to mass markets not niche creative types. Time will tell but why would you call peoples' well reasoned arguments nonsense?

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Ah, the Apple haters come out. "I hate Apple for not including a two button mouse until 2005, therefore I will say they're doomed." LOL.

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Not an apple hater.

Been mostly a windows user but kept in touch with apple products over the last 20+yrs.

Currently using an older Apple IMac and enjoying the experience. Better than windows in some aspects, still getting used to it in others. Said that I always liked the Unix/Linux based OS over Windows.

One thing that kept a lot of people from macs was the hardware requirements and costs, less now since they run on Intel chips.

Said that Jobs has been the major driving force behind Apple and its products over the years.

OTOH, don't really like the direction that Apple has taken with their new products, licences and software, distribution systems.

The future will tell.

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Apple is not an ordinary company. It's a cult with an extraordinary aura. It will survive if a Jobs' clone takes over from the current CEO. If no clone appears Apple is doomed to be a company like NEC, Hewlett Packard or the likes.

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Apple has very good products, compared to the time 20 years ago i started to use Apple products. Then it was cool and easy to handle, but slow. These days Apple has products, which can be developed further for a bright future of the company. Steve Jobs did his job well with the help of some people in the background. Once he will not be there for Apple anymore, there are some other cool heads who can lead the company for some years based on the product portfolio of today. But I agree, I don't know if they are able to invent and release new good products after this period. I hope they will...

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As long as Apple can keep their Chinese slave labor from committing suicide -they should be able to produce the slave goods that consumers cherish. Not having tariffs on these slave goods is necessary also.

The Mac store (the iStore to buy Mac apps) was needed and will be the future model for buying aPps for any computer.

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I will stand by Apple.

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Apple has its niche. It will survive because people live and die by their brand identity. I hope they will be another company that evolves and takes computing to another level. I don't think the 'design and creative' market will switch from Apple any time soon, but the computing world is looking for something different and the world will flock to the next best thing. Apple is not as original as some may think. They have marketed their brand to a niche market of well informed users to build brand loyalty. After all...it's really just a box with a logo IMO. There are more powerful machines available from other companies, but most people in the world are still in the dark about most things involving cpu's.

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I agree with all tkoind2 stated. The only reason some are questioning whether Apple will stand with Jobs on leave is because they put Jobs in "god-status". Jobs already knowing his own frailty in life has already groomed the person after him to take his place. He is a wise man and took care of all in case the inevitable happen while he was the standing CEO.

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MrDarryl at 06:35 AM JST - 21st January. Apple has its niche. It will survive because people live and die by their brand identity.

Apple was a niche product 20 years ago. However, for the last decade, they have been in a mainstream business. Apple had $20 billion in sales and over $4 billion in profit in just fourth quarter of 2010. How many companies can say that? They succeed and sold 3 million iPad in just 80 days. When there are problems, Apple takes care of them, and if they were such a bad product and brand, then why do people buy other Apple products? Because they were told to? Maybe give the consumers are little credit, they could actually be purchasing products they like. So next time, look at the customer satisfaction studies, and maybe the stock is selling at all time highs for a reason, so that means the potential investors know what they're doing as well. As much as I don't agree with a lot of what Apple does, they do seem to have one of the more thorough quality assurance procedures in the industry. Also, Apple has a deep pocket to hire and retain best talented people and this will continue with new innovation.

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Everything must change...

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One day he will be dead and they'll have to move on or collapse. Who was it that said,'The cemeteries of the world are filled with indispensable men'? Morita died, Sony moved on (albeit not as well but that's another story. Kennedy was assassinated, the world mourned and moved on. That's the nature of life. Besides, back in the late 80s-early90s, you barely heard a peep out of Apple. Life will go on. Count on it. As Gloria Gaynor once sang, 'I Will Survive.'

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