Toby Shapshak: Timing is everything. The day after Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes open-ended medical leave, causing widespread rumour mongering about his health and a new round of speculation about the future, without him, of the company he founded, Apple announces spectacular profits.

There's no denying Apple knows how to make a splash . and hide a smaller splash with a bigger one.

The Jobs announcement was cleverly made on a US holiday, when the markets weren't open, but, over in Frankfurt, Apple shares were down 8.3%.

A day later, they rebounded. And then some. Apple's last quarter showed a 78% surge in profit, dulling concerns about its iconic CEO's latest medical episode. He was away for six months last year for a liver transplant.

Jobs' health scares are quite something, aren't they? Not even a Twitter rumour about Nelson Mandela's demise (as it did last week) can generate as much chatter as Jobs' health. It's almost perverse.

There's no doubt that Jobs is a remarkable man, having survived cancer and deservedly being named Fortune's CEO of the decade. He's overseen a truly amazing comeback since he returned to Apple in 1996, the ultimate triumph over old foe Microsoft, at which several senior executives are jumping ship.

He may be the CEO, but chief operating officer Tim Cook, who will stand in for him again, is already running the company and has stood in for him on all three of Jobs's medical sabbaticals.

Apple, which last year became the highest-valued technology company, might not be called a computer company for long. The iPhone is its bestselling product, delivering 39% of its revenue in its last fiscal year. That's remarkable for a four-year-old device.

Apple dominates the Consumer Electronics Show, the world's biggest technology event, even though it never exhibits - as iPod docks and various other accessories now have an entire hall of their own and innumerable me-too iDevices predominate.

Cutting through the other announcements, about 3D TV, iPad-like tablets and other high-tech wizardry, Apple got coverage this year by announcing the Mac App Store, selling applications for its computers.

As Slate wrote: "How did Apple generate all that coverage? Its public relations department in California - [about 800km] away from the hubbub of the electronics show - issued a press release."

But by far the biggest news of the week was the shock changes at Google. I've always thought the best thing the two most famous Stanford dropouts, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, did (after founding Google in 1998) was hire Eric Schmidt three years later.

Schmidt was an industry veteran from software giant Novell and has run the internet monolith for the past decade. Now, Page takes over again as CEO while Schmidt moves on to become executive chairman. Brin will remain head of innovation.

The most pervasive reasoning behind this move is that Google has become stale. Facebook is attracting the smartest engineering talent (much like Google did to old foe Microsoft) and even newish companies, such as Groupon (which scorned a $6-billion takeover offer late last year) would rather go it alone. Remarkable, isn't it? After the $1.6-billion YouTube buyout, selling your start-up to Google seemed like the richest reward in the tech world. Talk about the world changing before your eyes.

Clearly, the search giant needed a shake-up, which the protagonists are portraying it as. Ironically, Schmidt announced his move on Twitter, saying "day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!" Then again, Page is now 38.

It's all amicable, voluntary and market-friendly. Unlike Apple, there were no scares, no panic, no clever timing before the results announcements. Google's shares gained $5-billion the next day. Even if it surprised the market, it is a textbook example of change management.

• Shapshak is the editor of Stuff magazine