Apple Suffers From Jobs’ Illness

Imagine this: a company is about to post a massive 50 percent jump in quarterly sales, achieved over a difficult Christmas period, during the aftermath of a massive recession. Yet the company’s shares are set to fall.

That is the strange situation Apple now finds itself in.

In 2010, the company was predicted to sell ten million iPads, a new product which revitalised the tablet sector and spawned an array of copycat devices from other vendors. The new version of its flagship smartphone, the iPhone 4, also did well, despite the antenna problem. The company is now worth a staggering $300 billion.

Yet, while the US exchanges have had a holiday on Monday, uncertainty about Apple was enough to cause a wobble in the market for Nasdaq futures.

The reason? Steve Jobs is ill.

Third leave of absence

For the third time, the man who is seen as the heart and soul of Apple is taking extended leave of absence for medical reasons. Last year, he had a liver transplant, and in 2004, had treatment for pancreatic cancer.

There are no details of the medical reasons for his absence this time – Jobs and Apple are entitled to privacy on this, and normally insist on it.

The announcement came quietly by email on Friday, and the timing may have been designed to minimise the financial impact on Apple. Announcing it before a long weekend will have given people time to notice the orderly transition to his chief operating officer, Tim Cook, and there will be little chance of a major panic causing people to sell their Apple shares.

Jobs will still approve major decisions, but has stepped back from day-to-day operation, which Cook will take over. That arrangement worked well last year, and clearly did not impact the development process for Apple’s products.

The iPhone 5 is obviously well under way, as is the iPad 2, and both should have relatively smooth paths to the market. As with previous iPhone generations, Apple does not have to do much, merely provide an incremental upgrade that doesn’t miss too many of the points where rivals like Android are scoring.

And, with both iPhone and iPad, Apple still has the opportunity to segment, producing different product versions as it did with the iPod. Smaller or larger variants of the iPhone and iPad would extend its market.

All this can happen without Jobs as the Messianic front man. What people are wondering, is whether the public will continue to be as enthralled with Apple products if Steve Jobs is not standing there to promote them.