NEXT STEPS

Apple Has Tough Path Without Jobs

Competition heats up with Google, Amazon, and Netflix.

Steve Jobs’s passing comes at a crucial moment for Apple and its new CEO, Tim Cook: it is surrounded by ferocious competitors bent on ending its dominance. Google hopes to beat the iPhone with its Android operating system; Netflix wants to become the premier destination for Internet streaming; and Amazon is undercutting the iPad with its inexpensive new tablet, the Kindle Fire. Jobs was able to make investors and consumers believe with his near-religious descriptions of the company’s products, but Cook is a more technical leader. His challenge will be to fight the real or imagined impression that Apple’s products are slipping without Jobs behind them.