The company was six months to running out of cash when Steve Jobs came back in 1998. The iPod came out in late 2001.

What Steve Jobs did that saved the company was put the hatchet to everything that didn't have an inkling of making cold hard cash. He killed the Newton, destroyed the convoluted product line, and most importantly put the whole company under one P&L statement. That's what saved Apple.

That he then was able to quickly herald a return to portable devices with the iPod is what allowed Apple to become the behemoth it is today. It's useless to pretend to know exactly what would have happened had Apple not made iPod.