For market watchers, Apple investors, and the sometime cultlikeApple users, the possibility that CEO Steve Jobs might finally depart from the company he helped found in 1976 was unsettling news. One analyst saidthat an Apple without Jobs "would still be a remarkablecompany, but with less of the competitive edge that Jobs helped create. . . . If he isn't able to return. I think you'dsee a high-functioning company, but one without the lightning strike of genius. [Apple would] have a human batting average.