I am very sure that Apples glory days will be over within 3 years. The reason is more and more aggressive competition, For instance, samsung have a very agressive
strategy and have Apple as main target, sure apple can call everyone who want to compete with their products for copy cats, but the company who bring the best product for the best
price will always win. And when it comes to price Apple will never win. Apple will never sell their products cheaps cause it would harm their trademark, and people would have the same feeling and emotion of the trademark, the high price is important to create the illusion of quality and to get a "luxurious" feeling. Their clean and minimalistic design is easy to copy.
They are already lacking behind on the smartphone market, they do not even have a dual core device out yet. Samsung Galaxy S2 is far far seperior.
And samsung will release soon an plus model of s2 with even better specs. Also they will soon release Galaxy Q which is a hybrid between a tablet and smartphone
and a foldable display. The rumours say the new iphone coming up in september is an desperate attempt to compete with other smartphones on the market now, cause
the only new thing will be the processor, otherwise the form factor etc will be very similar.
There is also now more completion for slim laptops... Samsung now have the slimmest laptop and has almost as good specs as Macbook air...besides 1.6GHZ cpu instead of 1.4 on the samsung, but I am sure they will release a faster version soon.
The new Lion OS has been receiving a lot of negative feedback, and once Windows 8 is released I am sure...it will be even harder for them to compete.
This is a consequence of Apple is not have their OS as their "focus" right now
I think really their fate will be seen in 2012 in Q1, this is when Apple will have the last chance now to be on the top, but I honestly think now when Apple have resigned all contracts
and collaboration with samsung in future I think it will be hard for them, their main problem is that Samsung is keeping their amoled technology to themsleves, the Galaxy S3 will have bendable amoled display, this means you will be able to roll the telephone up in your pocket... while Iphone 5 will have a hard surface like normal phones...yeah it will be very interesting for sure, but apple really have much to work up now.
My point is, things have changed the last 2 years, cause it is very obvious, the completion have apple as main target.so things have changed in the market.. the last two years..
the completion is more and more aggressive. Before the PC manufactures have not been caring about apple cause they did no sell big enough volumes..but now Apple has really become the main threat... Yes Apple is still the cutting edge but because the competition has changed strategy and to all cost compete with Apple I really do find it hard for them...
And last but not least, Steve jobs is dying, they are already looking for an replacement, I think without Steve Jobs..it will be even harder for them..to compete..
Apple have too many companies to compete with now... Once they lose the Iphone battle...it will go fast downhill. Apple is still on the top in many segments but they are barly surviving now, and their strong trademark I think really is to their benefit what if samsung could call their phones Iphones too..I am very sure that samsung would sell a lot more then, cause we associate the word "iphone" with smartphones, and the word iphone has been burned in way too deep into our synapses now the past 4 years, the only thing we read and hear is "iphone iphone iphone" "iphone app iphone app" you read it everywhere.