Although the iPhone continues to be the best selling smartphone globally and investors have not reacted negatively on Apple co-founder Steve Jobs's death, the most valuable company in the world may have less leverage when it comes to future media deals.

One area that analysts foresee as a potential impact of Mr Jobs's demise is weaker leverage in negotiations, particularly music distribution. When he was still alive, the erstwhile Apple chief executive officer (CEO) showed more personal interest in pushing for media deals in music than television or movies.

Deals with media companies help boost sales of gadgets made by Apple and main competitors Amazon and Google. The weaker leveraging can be attributed to different strategies adopted by the tech firms.

Apple earns mainly from sale of hardware. Google makes its software free to generate income from search advertisements and Amazon considers its newly launched Kindle Fire as more of a service than a gadget.

With Mr Jobs's creative genius gone from Apple, another challenge for the company is to manage expectation. Observers pointed to Apple's launch of the iPhone 4S on Tuesday as an example of unmet consumer expectation since many techies were anticipating an iPhone 5 release.

"People are expecting that every time Apple makes an announcement to make a revolutionary announcement, and that simply isn't possible," Harvard University professor of international business administration David Yoffie told The Wall Street Journal.

Mr Jobs was involved in the review of products under development and rejected prototypes that failed to meet his standards. The same high benchmarks have been taught and are being applied by Apple's executives.

Although there are fears that Apple's fortunes are tied up with Mr Jobs, former Apple employees pointed out that the co-founder put in place infrastructure and institutional knowledge for the company to go on even in his absence.

They said the company's corporate culture encourages creativity within its formal structure of product development and launches unlike in younger tech firms such as Google. Former Apple employee Andy Miller described the firms as an army with a role for every worker.

Former Apple chief software technology officer, Avie Tevanian, said Mr Jobs did not talk about succession out of the belief that talent would remain in the company if Apple maintains the right corporate culture.

Part of what keeps Apple executives is the competitive compensation package. After Mr Jobs appointed Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook as CEO in August, the board gave him 1 million restricted stock units, half of which will vest in 2016 and the other half in 2021.

An Equilar analysis said Mr Cook's award was the second-highest equity award in Silicon Valley history in the past 11 years. Of course, the highest is still Mr Jobs's package in 2000.

RELATED STORIES