I've recently watched this documentary called 'Jiro Dreams of Sushi'. It is about this legendary 85-year-old sushi master in Japan and his two sons who will succeed him in the business. At some point there was an interesting quote that went along the lines: when Jiro dies, his son will need to be twice as good as him, if he is "only" just as good, people will think he is worse.
I think this is quite true in the Apple case, there was a "genius" aura around the Steve Jobs personality that helped inflate the perception of his already impressive achievements. Without that aura, Apple might be doing just as good a job as he would do, but people will think worse of them.
Personally, I think that as long as they keep putting out the excellent quality products they've been releasing lately, pushing into new areas now and then, they will be just fine for quite some time.
I think this is quite true in the Apple case, there was a "genius" aura around the Steve Jobs personality that helped inflate the perception of his already impressive achievements. Without that aura, Apple might be doing just as good a job as he would do, but people will think worse of them.
Personally, I think that as long as they keep putting out the excellent quality products they've been releasing lately, pushing into new areas now and then, they will be just fine for quite some time.