But by most measures, Apple has thrived under his leadership. Cultofmac.com lists a series of accomplishments Apple has achieved on his watch, including making inroads in China, introducing Apple Pay, and the continued successful adoption of Apple's newest operating system, iOS 8.
The MIT Technology Review reports, however, that on one key measure, the shadow of Jobs still looms large over Cook's Apple: patents. Jobs has won 141 patents with the company — since his death. Cook's name has yet to appear on any.
Antonio Regalado, the author of that article, talked to NPR about Jobs' patent success. "He's won a lot more patents than your average inventor," he said. "Most inventors win only one or two patents in their entire lifetime." And Regalado says Jobs is still outperforming other CEOs. "Steve Jobs definitely outranks all of them both during his life and after his death, including Sergey Brin and Larry Page at Google, Jeff Bezos at Amazon. All these people have patents, but these numbers are smaller than what Steve Jobs got.