Apple is doing fine for the most part. Iphone 4S is doing good on it's own, and the Ipad may be somewhat at a low profile at the moment but it's still am obvious success overall (1 + 2). True, Apple may be feeling some sting from competition of Android Tabs on phones, but the Iphone brand is strong enough on its own (now that they expanded outside of ATT) and the Ipad 3 with new OS should keep it relevant.

Mind you i am no Apple fan.

there still making massive profit end of story

I don't see Apple going anywhere. Though I think their phone market could go the way of their Mac market if they aren't carefull and the competitors keep going the way they are. Android could be the PC of phones with more and more phone companies using Android the i-Phone is losing market share. BlackBerry was recently talked about controlling i-Phones and Android devices and while I really didn't fully understand the announcement a guy at Rogers said next generation BlackBerry's might be able to run two OS meaning it could run the BlackBerry OS and Android.

If that becomes the case where RIM starts supporting Android it will leave Apple in a much worse situation. Again I really don't know the specifics about the BlackBerry announcement but if they start running two OS then essentially iOS could be in trouble.

I think gradually if Apple can't maintain its online dominance they will lose the phone marketshare they currently enjoy. As Android takes over more and more their online content sales will begin to rise. Apple has so many devices that use i-Tunes however that it will still take a while for Android to fully take over.

As for other products I expect Apple to focus heavier on home entertainment with Apple TV and such. In the end I am guessing they will release a home console so to speak. An iOS home entertainment device that does everything 360 or PS3 currently does and more. I can't really see Apple creating many other revolutionary devices.

I mean what is left to revolutionalize?

Books - nope thats done with i-Pad

Music - i-pod

Movies - i-phone, Apple TV

TV - Apple TV

Video games - iOS

Phoning/emailing/txting - i-phone

Online storage - iCloud

GPS and voice recognition - Siri

I mean Apple has created devices and services for almost everything. There is little left that they can do new. From now on I see them evolving their current products as much as possible. At least once a year and they will continue to streamline their services creating a few key iOS devices to run the world!

Well I think they will be stuck creating something new. They've pretty much done everything you can with touchscreens.

A phone with a touch screen
An Ipod with a touch screen
An Ipod Nano with a touch screen
An Ipad

Seems like all of their "innovating" nowadays just deals with adding fucking touch screens. Eventually, these incredible sales will die off. Maybe not a year down the line, maybe not in 3 or 4 years. But in the future, they will need to create something new instead of making things smaller or with a touch screen.

We're talking about the Apple that continues to pull in record profits, right? There is no sign of slowing down at all and the iPad is starting to build real momentum while the rest of the tablet world (excluding the Fire) shuffles around, navel-gazing.

The iPhone 4S wasn't really that surprising. Apple did the same thing with the 3GS. The iPhone 6 or whatever will be a complete redesign.

Already an iPad? The iPad 2 is 8 months old. When they release the iPad 3, it will probably be 11 or 12 months old. That's completely normal.

Let's not forget the Mac line. It continues to break its own records in sales numbers and Apple is competing for second place in overall PC sales in the US.

This thread is nit-picking problems for a company that is decimating the competition right now and making sizable profits in markets where others struggle to stay afloat (PCs, smartphones). Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

Just because Google is ALSO doing very well (deservedly so) doesn't mean it's some sort of death knell for Apple.

BTW, it's pretty widely known that the next market Apple is going to attack is the burgeoning "connected TV" market. They're already leading the connected set top box market with Apple TV and Steve Jobs mentioned that he had "cracked the TV problem" shortly before he died and spent his last weeks working on a strategy how to move forward after he was gone.

At the same time, unlike the smart phone market the actual practical application of smart/connected TVs is almost non-existent beyond products like netflix ...

Think about it, you're sitting at home where you have a desktop or notebook computer, your smartphone is in your pocket and you (possibly) a tablet or LCD based ebook reader at hand what could Apple possibly offer through your TV that can not/is not offered on your game console, set-top box or media extender; or better delivered by one of the countless other devices you already have?

While almost everyone I know who owns a tablet has the same buyer’s remorse I have for (pretty much) the same reason, that it seems to be a device with compelling potential and no real use besides being an expensive portable media player/e-book reader, the connected TV doesn’t have this potential any more than a connected dishwasher does. And no matter how many iterations Apple will go through with Apple TV it will never be successful.

Apple will sell 4 million Apple TVs in 2011. At this point, they continue to call the project a "hobby".

That is one hell of a hobby. If you don't see the market potential for connected televisions done well, you're not really paying attention. Why do you think Microsoft entered the game market? It's the future of television once someone figures out how to break the back of networks and cable companies, gets them to play ball, and brings them in line with what the consumer of the future will demand. If anyone can figure out a way to do it, it's probably Apple (even though their methodology will probably be Draconian in nature and will stifle future competition). While you say "only Netflix", I see that as the future of television. More things will move to on-demand. Hulu and Netflix will continue to gain traction. Pay channels like HBO will start to allow people to subscribe over the Internet without a cable connection. At that point, set top boxes start to fight for space with cable boxes in the home market. That's where we're heading. It's a relatively small market now but it won't always be that way.

You may regret your tablet purchase but I don't. None of my friends do, either. And the ones who don't have one are deciding which one to buy. In time, the tablet market will start eating into the laptop market, just as the laptop market ate into the desktop market a few years ago.

Happysqurriel - Huh?

Like the pig said, i know literally dozens of people who have purchased tablets, and only a couple regret purchasing their pads, but only because they bought cheap ones. The point of apple TV is that you can take all of those devices that you have laying around and wirelessly connect them to your TV. I have the digital version of over a dozen movies loaded on my ipad/iphone. It would be nice to just hit the button and send it to my tv. Also, you can do Netflix, but you can do that with anything nowadays. The current version of AppleTV is outdated, but if Apple does have a newer version/TV coming, i would be interested to see it. We will see...

it seems to with no Jobs no direction.