What are Apple's still existing advantages?
It has the best supply chain in the business. We see the power of that supply chain this month as the new iPhone has gotten top reviews on sites like gdgt.com.
It has the best design team in the business.
It has the best PR team in the business. At Apple's latest press conference it had six times more satellite trucks outside than when Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, spoke.
It has the best retail channel in the business.
What is missing now that Jobs is gone?
The salesmanship. He goaded the industry to move to higher things and he convinced us that the future was here and that it was important to pay attention.
His ability to say no and keep things from shipping. Andy Grignon, who worked on the first iPhone, tells me all the time about how Jobs would kill a project or send it back for more work. He tells about how the original iPhone looked nothing like the shipping product. Jobs kept saying "no" until it was perfect.
His ability to get us to appreciate seemingly unimportant details. I still remember when he told me to look at how beautiful the back of an iMac was. Mr Cook tries to pull this off, but it doesn't sound the same coming from him.