But there's no need, so I'll simplify. If all Apple can do with that $100B is generate another Pixar, Macintosh, iPod or iPad, it is not enough and they should give the money back. To make it seem like a good bet, they need to produce another iPhone. And they can't, because no one can do that at will. We'll see another hit like that in 15 years or so if we're lucky.
The iPhone was the next step in omnipresent computing. You always have your iPhone. It's two steps down from laptops (leap-frogging the tablet, which has come after the iPhone). The next step is either glasses with computer screens (kind of geeky), or voice-interface computers.
With a voice interface, you can shrink a computer down to the size of a wristwatch. Getting data out is a problem (display glasses? some kind of projector?) is an issue, but not insurmountable.
15 years doesn't sound crazy.
http://www.codinghorror.com/.a/6a0120a85dcdae970b0163030a719...
Personally, I'd say Pixar seems to be the Apple of the movie industry. A few products, done right, and hugely profitable:
> As of February 2012, its films have made over $7 billion worldwide, with its $602 million average gross by far the highest of any studio in the industry. In addition all the films produced by Pixar are among the fifty highest grossing animated films of all time, with Finding Nemo (#26), Up (#43) and Toy Story 3 (#7) all in the top 50 list of highest-grossing films of all time. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixar
> My point is that (1) no, they really can't product another iPhone-like hit (that's a once-a-generation thing)
They've already put out three in a generation - iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Lumping those three distinct systems into one is intellectually dishonest.