Following yesterdays shock announcement that Steve Jobs will take the bench at Apple for six months until the end of June due to health issues and be temporarily replaced by current COO Tim Cook, Apple’s shares took a seven percent plunge but in early trading on Thursday made a slight recovery.

Many analysts and investors have weighed in on how they believe the news will affect Apple in 2009. Expectations towards the end of 2008 pointed towards Apple releasing a lower-end version of the iPhone dubbed “iPhone nano” and some kind of ultra-portable device, often described as a medium between the MacBook and iPhone.

“You can’t really dismiss the idea that if he would be gone from the company it would be a great loss, but there are a lot of innovative minds at Apple,” said Ted Parrish, portfolio manager at the Henssler Equity Fund in Georgia an owner of Apple stock.

“The company is in a great position, its product cycle is strong and we would buy Apple on weakness associated with this news.”

Analyst for Oppenheimer, Yair Reiner expects Jobs’ announcement to have “zero” impact on on Apple’s product plans for 2009 however the CEOs departure would affect future products still in the planning stages.

“Over the least ten years he has been the person who has filtered and synthesized the collective genius of all of Apple’s engineers … he has picked and chosen the best and ripest ideas and played a critical role in fitting those great concepts into great products” wrote Reiner in a report Thursday.

Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu added that although Jobs is a top innovator in history Apple has Jobs ideas institutionalised in its DNA.

“Apple is going to do well … there’s a lot of people at Apple who are responsible for its success” added Wu.

“What’s more important is the overall economy and people’s ability to pay $1,000 for an Apple notebook or pay $75 or $300 for an iPod or pay $200 for an iPhone,” said Mike Binger, fund manager at Thrivent Financial, an owner of Apple shares.

“That’s more pertinent to where the stock is going to go than how involved Steve is on a day-to-day basis.”

Gene Munster an analyst for Piper Jaffray added in a report on Wednesday evening that customers won’t stop buying products from Apple despite Jobs taking a sideline.

“We believe that during Jobs’ absence, Apple’s sales will be unaffected,” analyst Gene Munster told clients. “More importantly, we believe the pace of innovation will remain solid, driven by key product-minded executives,” he continued. “From an operational perspective, we expect [chief operating officer Tim] Cook to maintain the same standard of excellence that he demands as COO.”

Continuing on the subject of the “capable” Cook Munster said “while the iconic leadership of Steve Jobs cannot be fully replaced, we believe his core attributes as a CEO, operationally and with products, can be replicated,” adding “Cook provides the operational expertise for the company, which would serve him well as Apple’s CEO.”