A year after Steve Jobs, is Apple losing some ‘cool’?

One year after Steve Jobs died, the Apple stock has risen 78%. If that was the only yardstick, the question in the headline is meaningless.

By ET Bureau | Updated: Oct 05, 2012, 07.27 AM IST

One year after Steve Jobs died, the Apple stock has risen 78%. If that was the only yardstick, the question in the headline is meaningless. For its cultish followers, Apple is not just a dollar value flickering on a ticker. A mesmerising ‘desirability quotient’ and breakthrough technology, design, and intuitiveness of all products are as much a part of the Apple aura as the $620 billion marketcap of the world’s most valuable company.

So, last week, when Apple CEO Tim Cook told customers he was ‘extremely sorry’ for the frustration its new Maps application had caused them, the stock lost $12 billion, a 2.1% decline. The Apple legend had taken another hit, the fourth such blow in 2012. That’s how many missteps Cook has publicly acknowledged this year. Apple has made such admissions only 16 times in 36 years.