Can Apple stay technology's cool trend-setter without Jobs?

What happens to Apple now that its iconic co-founder Steve Jobs has passed away?

Jobs, who died after a long battle with cancer at the age of 56 on Wednesday, transformed Apple into the world’s most valuable technology company by creating path-breaking, cool devices that made millions of consumers salivate over digital technology in a way they had never done before.

With his design and marketing brilliance, Steve Jobs was not just the face of Apple Inc, he WAS Apple, as one consumer speaking to BBC TV put it. “He made technology personable,” she said.

Now that Jobs’ vision will no longer drive the company, will Apple be able to retain its tag of the technology’s world top purveyor of cool?

No doubt, it will be a challenge. To stay on top, Apple will need to continue developing the next generation of “must-have” gadgets while battling growing competition in the markets it has pioneered.

[caption id=“attachment_100653” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs smiles at the end of the iPhone OS4 special event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California in this April 2010 file photo. Robert Galbraith/Reuters”] [/caption]

Over the short term, updated models of the iPhone and iPad, as well as potential new products like a television, will keep the company growing.

Even as the rest of the world was dragged down by slowdown gloom, Apple’s profits for the quarter ended June more than doubled to $7.3 billion, helped by record purchases of iPads and iPhones. Sales soared 82 percent $28.6 billion.

But competition is rising. One of the biggest threats to Apple’s dominance is Google, whose Android has been rapidly gaining ground among smartphone and tablet users. Another rival is Amazon, which recently debuted the Kindle Fire , a tablet computer that some analysts think could pose the first real challenge to the iPad.

In a bid to expand its markets, Apple is looking aggressively at overseas markets such as China, where, it seems, young fans are ready to do outrageous things just to lay their hands on an Apple product.

While the infrastructure within the company to grow had already been put in place when Jobs handed over the reins to new chief executive Tim Cook in August, it remains to be seen how effectively Cook uses that to innovate and introduce new products, services and applications.

As recently as Tuesday, Cook led the debut of the iPhone 4GS , which disappointed reviewers and shoppers. For the doomsayers, the downbeat reception was a sign of more disappointments ahead. However, for now, investors are staying put with Apple’s shares, which are recommended by 49 analysts, with no sell ratings, according to Bloomberg data . On average, analysts predict the shares will rise another 32 percent to $499.40.

With booming sales and profits, Apple’s market value has zoomed past rival technology companies. Its valuation now exceeds the combined worth of Microsoft and Intel, two companies that once relegated Apple to the fringes of the personal-computer industry.

How Apple manages to hold on to that top spot without Jobs will be interesting to watch. While Apple’s reputation and profits seem intact in the short term, it will take time to judge whether the company, without Jobs, will continue to have that ability to ‘change the rules’ in whatever industry it enters as before.