One Year Later

One year after Steve Jobs' death, Apple's value is $257 billion (72.5%) higher.

Its rising (until recently) stock price may not reflect it, but Apple, its investors, and customers increasingly miss Steve Jobs. They believe with almost religious fervor that Steve would not have jeopardized quality and rushed the conversion from Google Maps. Or, at minimum, Steve would have figured out a way to fix the mistake, just as he did with the iPhone 4 antenna.

If Steve were still around, the iPhone 5 introduction would have been a knockout, the iTV would be on the shelves this year, and Tim Cook, with more focused responsibilities, would have been able to fix Apple's production problems in China.

More importantly, Apple would have continued to churn out amazing new products indefinitely. Instead, the magic will continue for only three to five more years, after which the pipeline will be empty.

One year later many are still stuck in denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Getting to acceptance has been harder than anyone thought. © 2012 Stephen Yuen