[meric]

I agree with your assessment. I might also boldly take another step and suggest even if Steve Jobs did not plan a new product category, Apple will still be very profitable in the next 10 years. They will continue be able to milk their existing products, and make minor updates. The iPod has been out for almost 10 years now. It's sales has declined but that was only because of iPhone's cannibalisation. Even if there was no iPhone, (e.g. if Steve Jobs died earlier), then Apple would still have at least 5 more years to go by coming up with their own new product category, e.g. an iPhone, without Steve Jobs, which would've been successful, but not wildly so; before peaking out and begin to decline.

This is only my opinion, based on observations of past companies that were only innovative while still being led by their original founders. Examples include HP, GE, Ford, and Apple itself.

[swombat]

Sorry, I wasn't clear - when I said that Apple's future in 10-20 years isn't assured, I didn't mean that they won't remain a hugely profitable company. What I meant was, right now, if you look at the last 10 years of Apple history, it's like a list of miracle product after miracle product.

Today's Apple is not just a successful technology company. They are, imho, the leading consumer technology company in the world - no one else comes close, not Sony, not Samsung, not Google or Microsoft (and part of the reason is that you can line them up with both hardware manufacturers and software companies). Over the last 10 years, Apple introduced 3 products, each of which basically created or dominated an industry: the iPod (dominated the mp3 player industry), the iPhone (created the modern smart phone industry), the iPad (in the process of creating the tablet industry, and so far dominating it).

Had Steve Jobs lived another decade, I fully expect that we would have seen another 2 or 3 such genre-defining products in that period. Did he leave enough of his mind behind that those will happen even though he passed away? When you look at Apple in 10 years, will they look as awesome as they do today? That's what's at risk, not Apple's survival.