When Wall Street rewarded Apple Inc this week with a stock price rebound despite a dramatic fall in quarterly profits, it showed it was finally moving on from the Steve Jobs era.Revenues for the company's third quarter for 2016 came in at $42.4-billion (about R601-billion), down 14.6% over the same period last year. Profit took a beating, down 27% to $7.8-billion. But the reality is that it remains one of the world's most profitable companies.The mild form of insanity that compels investors to follow the herd has tended to punish Apple for its profits remaining merely sparkling rather than being spectacular. In a way, it has been a reverse of late CEO Jobs's supposed reality distortion field, which enabled him to convince others to believe anything he told them.story_article_left1Wall Street has hankered for a return to the Jobs era, during which a steady flow of products and services redefined their industries. The shadow of Jobs hung especially heavily over current CEO Tim Cook when he unveiled the Apple Watch. By failing to dominate either the world of watches or the market for wearables - where activity bands rule - the Watch is seen as a failure.That perception is of Apple's own making, however. Numerous other technology manufacturers had been-there-done-that. Even chipmaker Qualcomm produced a smartwatch, the Toq, to show off the versatility of its chips. The message: anyone can revolutionise the watch.That one can be blamed on the marketers. However, Cook and his accountants are also responsible for the perception of the Watch having failed, as they consistently refuse to divulge sales figures. The numbers for iPhones and iPads are usually shared in meticulous detail.But again, one detail was not shared this week: sales of the new lower-cost iPhone SE, which marked Apple's return to the 4-inch form factor of previous generations of their phone. Analysts have been upbeat about the sales figures, but there is a number that hints at trouble: gross profit margins. The more SE units that are sold, the lower Apple's overall margin.In its latest numbers, Apple revealed that margins had fallen from 39.7% to 38%. While this is a margin many companies can only dream about, it has been in slow decline at Apple since hitting a high of 47.37% 17 quarters ago, in 2012.Such trendlines had been a major concern to Wall Street in recent years, and it is telling that the continued slippage has been forgiven, along with the "failure" of the Watch. It means that the market now accepts Cook is writing a new history at Apple and Jobs should now truly rest in peace.This does not mean that Apple itself can rest, however. It still faces many pressures that could turn all its dials down. Chief among these is the brutal shift in the Chinese market, where it had hoped to make major inroads.Instead, local companies like Huawei and Xiaomi have captured that market with low-cost phones featuring high-end specifications and rapidly improving quality. The latest flagship phones from both of these companies have arrived in South Africa, and are turning consumers' heads with their value for money.Apple has also found Chinese authorities hostile to its aspirations, having lost a patent claim by tiny start-up Shenzhen Baili. The court ordered an injunction against iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales in China, based on the local company taking out a patent on smartphone design. Apple may find itself caught up in a mesh of similar claims as local companies jump on the bandwagon and take out patents for inventions that already exist.It is little wonder Cook is said to travel to China more than to any other country as he plays a diplomatic game every bit as strategic as any marketing gambit Jobs undertook. Apple has pumped $1-billion into the Chinese equivalent of Uber, Didi Chuxing, and more investments can be expected...