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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — With Steve Jobs bowing out as CEO, Apple Inc.
must persuade investors and consumers that it doesn’t need the
force behind the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad in charge to keep the
technology hits coming.
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Tim Cook, his hand-picked successor, has handled the top job
repeatedly in the absence of the ailing Jobs, who resigned as chief
executive Wednesday and was elected chairman of Apple’s board.
Though not nearly as recognizable as Jobs, Cook had been running
Apple since January. The company’s stock rose 62 percent when Cook
was in charge in the first half of 2009, and it gained 8 percent
since Jobs announced his most recent leave.
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On Thursday, Apple’s stock fell $4.03, or about 1 percent, to
$372.16 in midday trading, but the entire market was down by an
equal amount as well.
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Jeff Gamet, managing editor of Apple-focused news site The Mac
Observer, said Jobs’ departure has more sentimental than practical
significance. He said he has been telegraphing the change for
several years.
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“All Apple really has done is made official what they’ve been doing
administratively for a while now, which is Tim runs the show and
Steve gets to do his part to make sure the products come out to
meet the Apple standard,” he said.
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But Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research, said
Jobs’ maniacal attention to detail is what has set Apple apart. He
said Apple’s product pipeline might be secure for another few
years, but he predicted that the company will eventually struggle
to come up with market-changing ideas.
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“Apple is Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs is Apple, and Steve Jobs is
innovation,” Chowdhry said. “You can teach people how to be
operationally efficient, you can hire consultants to tell you how
to do that, but God creates innovation. … Apple without Steve
Jobs is nothing.”
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Jobs’ resignation appears to be the result of an unspecified
medical condition for which he took a leave from his post in
January.
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In a letter addressed to Apple’s board and the “Apple community,”
Jobs said he “always said if there ever came a day when I could no
longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be
the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has
come.”
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Jobs’ health has long been a concern for Apple investors, who see
him as an oracle of technology. He had previously survived
pancreatic cancer and received a liver transplant.
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The company said Jobs gave the board his resignation Wednesday and
suggested that Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, be named the
company’s new leader. Apple also said Cook is becoming a member of
its board.
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Genentech Inc. Chairman Art Levinson, in a statement issued on
behalf of Apple’s board, said Jobs’ “extraordinary vision and
leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s
most innovative and valuable technology company.”
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He said that Jobs will continue to provide “his unique insights,
creativity and inspiration,” and that the board has “complete
confidence” that Cook is the right person to replace
him.
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“Tim’s 13 years of service to Apple have been marked by outstanding
performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound
judgment in everything he does,” Levinson said.
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Earlier this month Apple briefly became the most valuable company
in America, surpassing Exxon Mobil. At the market close Wednesday,
Apple’s value was $349 billion, just behind Exxon Mobil’s $358
billion.
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Jobs’ hits seemed to grow bigger as the years went on: After the
colorful iMac computer and the now-ubiquitous iPod, the iPhone
redefined the category of smartphones and the iPad all but created
the market for tablet computers.
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His own aura seemed part of the attraction. On stage at trade shows
and company events in his uniform of jeans, sneakers and black
mock-turtlenecks, he’d entrance audiences with new devices, new
colors and new software features, building up to a grand finale
he’d predictably preface by saying, “One more thing.”
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Jobs, 56, shepherded Apple from a two-man startup to Silicon Valley
darling when the Apple II, the first computer for regular people to
really catch on, sent IBM Corp. and others scrambling to get their
own PCs to market.
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After Apple suffered a slump in the mid-1980s, he was forced out of
the company. He was CEO at Next, another computer company, and
Pixar, the computer-animation company that produced “Toy Story” on
his watch, over the following 10 years.
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Apple was foundering as he returned as an adviser in 1996 – a year
it lost $900 million as PCs based on Microsoft Windows dominated
the computer market. The company’s fortunes began to turn around
with its first new product under Jobs’ direction, the iMac. It
launched in 1998 and sold about 2 million in its first 12
months.
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Jobs eventually became interim CEO, then took the job permanently.
Apple’s popularity grew in the U.S. throughout the 2000s as the
ever-sleeker line of iPods introduced many lifelong Windows users
to their first Apple gadget. Apple created another sensation in
2007 with the iPhone, the stark-looking but powerful smartphone
that quickly dominated the industry.
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The iPad was introduced less than a year and a half ago but has
already sold nearly 29 million units as it inspired myriad rivals
in a tablet computer market that scarcely existed before Apple
stepped in.
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There have been some setbacks. Apple was swept up in a massive
Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into stock options
backdating in the mid-2000s, a practice that artificially boosted
the value of options grants. But Jobs and Apple emerged unscathed
after two former executives took the fall and eventually settled
with the SEC.
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—
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AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed
to this report.
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