Today was the day that Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Inc., resigned his position as CEO.

Steve Jobs did not make the hardware. He did not write the software that runs on it. He did not design the batteries that go in Apple products, nor screens, nor cases, nor memory, nor processors, nor circuit boards, nor antennas - nothing.

The quality of the products (in terms of defects) were handled by test engineers, not Jobs. The manufacture of the products was by large Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese companies (largely), not Jobs nor Apple directly. The advertising and marketing wasn’t done by Jobs.

It is fair to assume that all of these things and many others will function perfectly well without Steve Jobs as the CEO of Apple.

What Steve Jobs did do, was to set the standard - to set the bar. He has a set of design beliefs and principles that are well known: a dislike of physical buttons, cables, and a general push for simplicity as well as thinner and lighter devices. These design goals and his dogged focus on them have brought products to the world that no other company at the time could create.

Those closest to him (in a business sense), being Phil Schiller, Tim Cook and other executives, have been watching and learning about the bar that Steve Jobs set. They will continue to emulate that bar as best they can, without him as CEO. They have the last 10 years of building success to guide them in their future direction.

Apple without Steve Jobs as the CEO?

Their future is in safe hands.