Woz Discusses Whether Apple Can Prosper Without Jobs

Although Apple was dangerously close to irrelevancy in the late '90s, the history books will focus on the epic tale of the company's reemergence as an innovator and eventual market leader under the leadership of the late Steve Jobs. This week, near the one-year anniversary of , the iconic CEO's first partner, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, has emerged to answer the one question nearly everyone has been asking since Jobs's passing: Can Apple succeed without him?

The question since Jobs's untimely death, with analysts and commentators speculating on the length and nature of Jobs's pre-death product roadmap and overall vision. With the company now in the hands of Tim Cook, the general tenor of post-Jobs Apple coverage has been characterized by a guarded "wait-and-see" attitude by most.

That veneer of cautious optimism suffered a momentary hiccup last week when Cook did something that Jobs, some claim, would have avoided at all costs: He for the less-than-stellar performance of Apple's new iOS 6 Maps app. The reaction to that public contrition from a company normally committed to resolutely standing behind is product releases, was mixed and included everything from warm accolades from longtime Apple stalwarts, to hints from some that this might be for Cook and Apple, as the company veers from Jobs's traditionally unapologetic approach to feature issues in new products.

But whichever side consumers choose to believe, no one has a more uniquely broad and intimate perspective on Apple and Jobs's impact on the company than Wozniak. Yesterday, in an "Ask Me Anything" session on Slashdot, Wozniak opened himself up to a number of questions about technology, his personal life, and, most importantly, the future of Apple.

When asked if Apple could prosper without Jobs in the driver's seat, Wozniak said, "Back [in the early days of Apple] we knew how to make good new versions of our computers to satisfy the needs of our Macintosh market. But we didn't do radically different things until the iMac. We should keep a watch for Apple returning to just milking its existing markets and not astounding us with new categories of products, or totally astounding ones. There is always a danger. And my personal opinion is that if it goes sour, it might have gone sour with Jobs there, so conclusions should not be drawn. That is not constructive for Apple."

Although Wozniak is no longer directly involved with Apple's product development or strategy, his focus on innovation as the future of Apple is key to understanding the DNA of the company he built with Jobs in the '70s. Last year, just after Jobs's death, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son related that detailed an encounter with Cook, who intimated to him that Jobs was working on new and innovative Apple products right up until the very end of his life. But even if Jobs's vision is represented in products like the iPhone 5 and the rumored iPad mini, his instructions and vision are likely to have a limited shelf life in the face of an ever-changing technology landscape.

Wozniak understands that this is one of Apple's central challenges moving forward. Looking into the future of an Apple without Jobs's innovation-first guidance, Wozniak said, "Apple was a one product company back then. Now we are very diversified and strong. If one product suffers we can recover based on the income and profits from our other sectors. We have computers, laptops, iTunes, iPods, retail stores, online Apple Store, iPhones, iPads (and Apple TV?). We also have a strong culture of innovation that is well understood, not only by those in control, but by our customers, who set a lot of our direction in terms of their expectations. We did go through a period of introducing a lot of key younger talent when Steve Jobs returned [in 1997]. One suggestion is that we look at doing that again."

For more, see , and our slideshow of his greatest victories below.