I say this as someone that uses none of these type of devices from any vendor.
Is this similar to how AMD's Bulldozer architecture back around that timeframe was the writing was on the wall for their current competitive dominance over Intel?
PA Semi was a great talent accu-hire, but AFAIK at the time of acquisition they only had Power-based designs ready for market.
> It kind of feels like Steve picked the last of the low hanging fruit and then bowed out before it came to stagnation.
PT Barnum was a renowned showman as well, but that doesn't mean he trained all the elephants.
For instance, I would hardly say the release of a market-dominating phone was a foregone conclusion based on the success of the iPod, and an Apple without the iPhone would look incredibly different.
Sure, people wanted to take their music with them, but the nearly purely multitouch interface was a fresh invention - the iPod did not have a touch interface AFAIK until three years later.
I just don't see something which was such a fresh take and new engineering - to the point that other smartphone vendors thought the original keynote demos were staged - was low-hanging fruit.
By low hanging fruit, I mean the concept of a portable computer in your pocket. I'm not undermining the astounding work that went into things like the iPhone - The execution was fifth steps above everyone else. I just mean after the iPhone and iPad, ideas that had been around for a long while but had not been executed well, we have been waiting to see what the next step will be. I feel this is why things like VR got so much traction.
But Air-pods, Apple Watch and Apple TV streaming were all under cooks watch. Maybe not as ground breaking but still very important. Mind you, who else has been doing ground breaking stuff like under Steve? I cannot think of anything other than the recent AI stuff. It kind of feels like Steve picked the last of the low hanging fruit and then bowed out before it came to stagnation.