Neil Cybart, writing for Above Avalon:
Apple knows that one day the world will move beyond the iPhone. That day won’t be tomorrow, next month, or even next year. It may not even be for another five years. Apple could very well make another trillion dollars of revenue from the iPhone. But it is inevitable that the iPhone will eventually lose relevency. Apple knows the best way of navigating such a future is to be the one that makes the iPhone irrelevant.
Apple has to think this way. This is solid long term thinking, certainly, but it is also forced on them by the battle of the two Apples, one driven by thoughtful curiosity and inventiveness, and the other by market forces.
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
– Alan Kay
What evidence does Cybart have that 5 years defines the endgame for iPhone? Tim Cook said the iPhone cycle was closer to the beginning than the end. Launched 8 years ago, I believe any end to iPhone is WAY down the line, and surely way past 5 years from now. In the meantime WS myopia prevails that iPhone will be irrelevant in the near term. I’m sure WS said this about cars in the day of horses and buggies, too. I’m betting on Tim Cook here.