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The most valuable tech company on Earth has a new boss, and it’s Tim Cook, an intensely private and soft-spoken man who is taking over the role of CEO from one of the most iconic personalities on the planet. But who is Tim Cook? What’s he like? What’s he done to deserve the job? And can Apple really succeed without Steve Jobs at the helm?

To the latter question, the answer is a resounding yes. In fact, Tim Cook has arguably been running Apple’s day-to-day operations for years. He has been more integral than anyone else in the company short of Steve himself in turning Apple around from a dying and moribund PC maker into the unstoppable juggernaut the company is today. Here’s what you need to know.

Things at Apple are going to be a little different without Steve Jobs at the helm. I have no doubt that Tim Cook will step up to do a fantastic job, but there are many reasons why we’ll never forget Steve’s time at Apple. Here we take a look at some of Apple’s greatest achievements while Steve was at the company, and the products that have made it the world’s largest company.

After Steve Jobs’ resignation, Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook sent out a gracious letter to staff in which he spells out the future of Apple and what it was like to be mentored by Steve for so many years. We’ve got the full text below.

Following Steve Jobs’ decision to step down from the position of Apple CEO yesterday, the internet is awash with reaction pieces and opinions from some of the industry’s biggest names. MacRumors points to a rather humorous anecdote from Google’s Vic Gundotra, in which he pays tribute to Steve’s meticulous attention to detail — which Gundotra believes every CEO should have.

Gina Smith editor-in-chief of BYTE.com and co-author of  iWoz: How I Invented the Personal Computer and Had Fun Along the Way (available at the iBook Store) spoke to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak yesterday and according to BYTE the announcement that Jobs was stepping down as Apple CEO made him “happy for Jobs. ”

If you’re a regular visitor to Cult of Mac, you’ll already have some appreciation of how terrific Steve Jobs is. But do his employees share the same opinion of him as us fans?  Well, according to the employment reviews and rating site Glassdoor, 97% of them approved of him as CEO — making Steve one of the most successful CEOs among those rated on the site.

We all knew this day would come — but not so soon. My reaction was a sudden exclamation of “holy crap” after seeing the USA Today headline pop up on my iPad while on a conference call.

Thank You, Steve Jobs.

We all reacted with surprise and disbelief today as we heard the news you were resigning as CEO of Apple. Anyone who follows Apple in even a cursory fashion knows that you have not been well, so the news was not entirely unexpected. But still quite sudden, and reaction has been swift around the world.

Here are some quick thoughts about Steve Jobs’ resignation…

Steve’s stepping down has been some time coming, but it’s still a shock. We all knew he would be standing down eventually, but that was at some point in the future. Maybe next year, or the year after. It was a shock to hear he’s stepping down. And obviously, it doesn’t bode well for his health.

Apple stock plummeted during after-hours trading today after Steve Jobs announced his resignation.

Trading was frozen at $376.18 a share for Apple, before the Steve Jobs announced his resignation after the closing bell struck on Wall Street today. Shares tumbled after news of Jobs’s resignation, and had already fallen over five percent, or $19, by 5 P.M. PDT.

Apple shares were up a half percent from opening before the news. How far they fall before morning should give some indication of how much the public believes Steve=Apple. Follow the shares here.

Apple has posted Steve Jobs’ resignation letter (and no, apparently there’s not an app for that). Like you’d expect, it’s short and sweet. Full text below.

Surprising news today from Cupertino that Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, Inc. Jobs has stepped down and the board is naming Tim Cook as his replacement. The company said, “Steve extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company, ” and Jobs stated:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

Steve Jobs will remain as the Chairman on Apple’s board. Check out the complete press release after the break.

A new report says that when the iPhone 5 debuts in Fall, it will launch simultaneously on AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. It’s about time.

More interesting? Despite the fact that over a million iPhone users are on T-Mobile already, they are doing so without 3G access, just EDGE. When the iPhone 5 comes around, that’s about to change.

This concept video by San Francisco design house Aatma Studios starts off pretty well: they envision future iPhones and iPads using a combination of a built-in pico projector and IR sensors to project a light-based keyboard on a flat surface. Just type on that projected keyboard as you would on any other and the iPhone will register your keystrokes.

Score a huge, huge win for Apple in its IP fight with Samsung: a Dutch court has just granted Apple a preliminary injunction preventing the Samsung Galaxy series of smartphones from being sold in Europe, effective on October 13th.

The security experts at McAfee have published details of a new study that found during the second quarter of 2011, Android-powered devices faced a staggering 76% increase in malware than that of the first quarter — while Apple’s iOS devices remained unaffected by malicious exploits.

One of Apple’s education profile stories has caught some heat for highlighting how Mac products are teaching a new generation of journalists the trade.

Some question whether those would-be Woodward and Bernsteins at the Missouri School of Journalism should be pledging allegiance to Apple, one of the world’s most powerful companies.

An new police app takes the game of cops and robbers to a different level: concerned citizens – plus hooligans, miscreants and various and sundry – in Surrey, U.K. can now see where the police are.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Sprint will offer Apple’s iPhone come this October. Currently, the iPhone is only available on AT&T and Verizon. An AT&T/T-Mobile merger is currently in the process of being approved by the FCC, so that leaves Sprint as the lonely, iPhone-less kid in the corner.

According to a new report, Sprint will soon be able to share in Apple’s ‘magical’ smartphone when the iPhone 5 is launched in October.

Thirty two years ago, a UK office furniture manufacturer called Hille International wanted a new design for an office chair, something that would pry loose the white-knuckled fingers of American design duo Charles and Ray Eames from their death grip on the office furniture market.

The line of chairs that resulted was called the System Supporto, and not only is it a masterpiece of design… it is Apple designer Jony Ive’s favorite kind of chair, widely used within Apple. According to our own source, it probably even inspired the design of the MacBook Pro!

Further information surrounding that rumored ‘budget iPhone’ continues to surface as we approach the launch of the fifth-generation device, and according to two sources for Reuters, it could be in the form of a cheaper 8GB iPhone 4. Surely that gets your mouth watering?

Since launching the CDMA iPhone for Verizon back in February, Apple has been producing two models of the iPhone 4: one for AT&T, and one for Verizon. A dual-mode iPhone 5 with support for both CDMA and GSM networks seems like a no-brainer next time around, then, and according to at least one iOS app developer, the device is all but confirmed by logs that show a dual-mode device in testing.

In case you needed any more confirmation: yes, the iPhone is doing very well in the US. Research firm NPD has published its Mobile Phone Track report for Q2 of 2011, and the iPhone 4 and 3GS tank as the top two best-selling smartphones.

Even during the current economy, consumers are still opting for the Apple tax. What’s even more interesting is that the iPhone 3GS is the second best-selling smartphone, and the 3GS has been on the market for over two years.

Ever wonder why iOS 5 features built-in Twitter integration but not Facebook, the largest social network on Earth? It’s because Steve Jobs thinks Mark Zuckerberg is a “f*cking a**hole,” according to tech evangelist Robert Scoble.