Apple after Steve

The passing of Steve Jobs has probably been heavily talked about over the past few days. Along with that there have been some questions that have been raised about the current leadership at the company and the ability of the company to produce game changing devices going forward. People have called him a great visionary and one of biggest change agents in recent times. In all the noise, people seem to have lost sight of one point; apart from the Macintosh in 1984, Steve Jobs had not come up with any idea which was not already present in the market. Macintosh was a game changer. It was ahead of its times, it was not like anything that was there, it was new and unique. Microsoft copied it and made Millions... Sorry Billions. There were hoards of MP3 players in the market when the iPod came out. The only thing different about the iPod was the user interface, which was revolutionary and it was marketed like candy to a child. There were several touch phones in the market when the iPhone came out; multi-touch user interface was the big innovation, the product itself was not new or unheard of. Similarly, there were tablets in the market already when iPad came out. The only thing different about Apple was that they were able to provide a user interface that was much better and integrate the other facets of selling such as with book publishers and magazine publishers. The only great difference between all that the market had to offer and what Apple made available to its customers was the design of the product and the user interface that they created. Apart from this, their ability to sell, particularly Steve Jobs ability to make people drool over every Apple product was the main differentiator. On the design and user interface front, I am certain that Apple will be able to hold on to the processes that have already been put in place. There is not going to be a huge difference in the design philosophy that would creep in post Steve Jobs. And, by the looks of the iPhone 4S presentation, I feel the 'art of the drool' has been firmly imbibed in the entire top management of Apple and will get passed down hereon. I am sure Apple will pull through without Steve. The last time he did not know that he would be leaving, Apple was not prepared. It is not the same case this time around.