Steve Jobs Still Has Tricks up His Sleeves

[caption id="attachment_2685" align="alignleft" width="415" caption="The Clear Glass Windows of an Apple Store"][/caption]

Yesterday, Steve Jobs announced his resignation as CEO of Apple. This departure should not be surprising to those who have been following his career, but for those who have not , Jobs has been battling an illness that has cost him to miss many days at the office. He left the company in good hands, and does not see his departure as the end of Apple. In fact, quite the opposite. Here are some of the ideas and plans Jobs discussed before leaving Apple. He may not be the CEO anymore, but he's still their visionary leader:

Handing over the CEO title to No. 2 executive Tim Cook, Jobs vowed to stay on as chairman of the company.

With Jobs Apple's co-founder, savior and visionary, there is understandable concern that the company will be depleted of some inspiration, urgency and focus.

But if anything, Jobs' own plans for the company are now only more immediate.

As the newly-anointed chairman, Jobs has a few final accomplishments to achieve. And aptly, there's nothing less than monumental to get crossed off the list.

Here's one clue that Jobs is busy with more than formalizing Apple's executive succession plan.

Just a week before Jobs resigned his hectic duties as CEO, he was "personally negotiating with China Mobile(CHL_)" to sell the iPhone, according to Mobiledia.

Apple already sells iPhones to the smaller carrier China Unicom(CHU_), but even doomsayers would have to agree that if Jobs nailed down the world's largest mobile phone seller (count: 600 million users), there might be some boost to iPhone sales.

China Mobile -- and China overall -- represent the single greatest growth opportunity for Apple. And as a new market with rising prosperity, Apple clearly stands to gain a strong foothold in a market where increased consumer spending can start to feed the sales of gadgets like iPods, Macs and iPads.

Steve Jobs wants to make China happen for Apple.

The underpinning tenet of Steve Jobs' retail strategy is to bring the coolest products in the coolest way to you -- the totally cool and affluent consumer.

Make no mistake, Apple has no interest in opening stores that anchor a community turnaround project. Apple is by all measures a capitalizer, not a gentrifier.

But in addition to affluent-only locations, Jobs pushes for a store design -- usually a geometric form almost always made of glass -- that has become the distinctive look of Apple retail.

The glass cube at Apple's 5th Avenue New York City flagship, at the tony southeast corner of Central Park, is a prime example. But even the two patents that Jobs holds on glass staircases illustrates just how critical the Apple look is to Jobs' vision of the company's retail future.

Jobs wants to sculpt the face of Apple retail, even if he has to do it one staircase at a time.

Read more at The Street