As everyone in the world knows, Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO of Apple Wed., August 24.

Yet he was already on medical leave, and this was his third such leave in the last half-dozen or so years. I have to believe that the toll of the job was getting to him, so he wisely stepped aside and had Tim Cook – who’s been running the show for the past year – named CEO.

Yet Jobs asked – and his request was granted – that he stay on Apple’s board.

So while he’ll be spared the day-to-day hassles, the hand that steers Apple isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Just a bit of a lower profile.

Here are my thoughts on the end of Jobs’ full-time engagement with Apple:

• I do believe Jobs’ health is at risk; I wish him the best.
   
• Jobs will still be running things for as long as he’s able.
   
• Were Jobs to completely sever ties with Apple today; there would still be 2-3 years worth of products with his imprimatur on them in the pipeline. That’s how big companies work – and Apple’s now a freaking huge company.
   
• There are worries for Apple fanboys, simply because there has not been a CEO and company so completely one and the same as Jobs and Apple in modern history. Really – can you name anyone who has exercised such control over a huge company? Not even Bill Gates at his strongest (pre-Netscape). Jobs would have to step down at some point, but I don’t think anyone wanted it to be this week. Well, maybe his competitors…
   

Of all the articles discussing the changing of the guard at Apple, I think uber-Mac fanboy John Gruber had the best line:

Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.

— Resigned

It is true – Jobs oversaw the creation of new markets, fabulous software and elegant hardware, and who knows what’s coming.

Yet the company – as a whole – does seem to be the greatest creation of all.