Apple can do no wrong at the moment - it's even reported that they are holding more cash than the USA. But I just can't believe that their success is going to last. And here's why.
Apple's business model seems to be:
(i) Release new hardware
(ii) Hardware is very cool so people flock out to buy it (even though it's much more expensive than competing products)
(iii) Protect the brand by tightly monitoring applications that third parties develop for the hardware
(iv) Take 30% of any revenue the developer gets
(v) Repeat 6 months later.
All this hardware development must be very expensive for Apple but they can't take a break and rely on their older products because they seem to be actively discouraging third party developers (cf. (iii) and (iv)). Developers want to write software for Apple products because it is new and cool and thus they have a big market. But after a few months other companies have caught up with Apple's hardware and, crucially, they aren't going to take 30% away from the developers. So the developers move over to the other platforms and so the application offering on the Apple hardware stagnates. We already see this at the moment with the Android app store being predicted to overtake Apple's app store later this month.
Thus the reason they need point (v).
But what happens when they release a bad hardware platform (it has to happen eventually!) or they just run out of ideas for new products that people might want?
That day, I believe, will be the beginning of the end for Apple.
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