This article was to be titled “Who Do You Love, Apple or Steve Jobs” until the realization hit the author that most Apple product owners would say that they loved both of them. In the light of recent happenings, that reply might not be true. Firstly, a little background on Apple and Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs (full names: Steven Paul Jobs) co-founded Apple (with Steve Wozniak) in 1976 and left in 1985 after losing an internal power struggle with the board of directors. He started a company called NeXT and returned to Apple in 1996 when Apple bought NeXT. He became Apple’s CEO in 1997. Since then, he has worked to return Apple to profitability with the introduction of the iMac, iPod and iPhone.

Now to the recent happenings that seem to indicate that consumers purchasing an Apple product could really only be buying it because Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple.

Low Key Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2009

At this year’s WWDC, Apple’s keynote address was delivered by Philip W. Schiller, its Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing. It was hardly given the kind of attention that usually attended previous addresses given by Steve Jobs (referred to as “Stevenotes”). The highlight was the announcement that Steve Jobs was about to return from his “leave of absence for health issues” despite the fact that a new product, the iPhone 3GS was introduced. No mention was made of the fact that he had undergone a surgical operation for a liver transplant.

Release of the iPhone 3GS

The newest product from Apple was announced at the WWDC and was released to coincide with Steve Jobs’ return. The result is that in the euphoria that ensued, the new iPhone sold more than a million units in less than a week (compared to the Palm Pre which was released much earlier and has sold about 150,000 units).

Steve Jobs and Apple’s share price

 When it was reported in the news that Steve Jobs’ health issues did not concern the supposed hormone imbalance he said he suffered from; but that during his leave of absence he had undergone a liver transplant due to end-stage liver disease, Apple’s share price lost ground. It dropped from $141.01 to $139.48 (a 3.9% loss) in just two days. There are also news reports in which analysts insist that the details of Jobs’ health issues should have been made public to protect investors who choose to invest in Apple stock. All this comes despite the fact that companies are not required by law to make such information public.

You might be convinced by the above that Apple is really all about Steve Jobs or you might not be. The question still remains: “What Do You Buy, Apple or Steve Jobs?”