[eftpotrm]

But the reason they're currently able to extract the profit they are from the market is that they've been able to build an aura as the only true 'premium' quality device, in some people's mind I've no doubt the only device of its kind.

That isn't sustainable. Both awareness and quality of competitor devices (primarily Android) is rising, and if unchecked will become a truly serious competitor to Apple. Who are then left with a premium but niche device that's incompatible with the software base of the largest platform and more expensive, and they're left selling look, feel and image over functionality for a premium - otherwise known as the 1990s MacOS strategy.

This leaves them two alternatives:

* Try to remove competitors from the market to protect your position and so margins. This seems to be the current 'patent war' strategy.

* Start trying to compete on volume. Low-end devices to get customers into the iOS ecosystem, price competition on the premium devices. It's working with tablets after all, where the major competitors to the iPad are still baffling me by producing half a netbook's components for twice the cost rather than merely 1.5 times the cost as Apple have. Problem, though, is that the whole market volume strategy increases costs and workloads, decreases margins and starts chipping away at the premium image.

Short answer: I don't see how Apple's current strategy is sustainable in the long-term. If that revenue graph is accurate, I'd be shorting Apple's stock.