A few days ago, I wrote about the possibilities forSteve Jobs’ final “One more thing…” It seems pretty clear at this point that when he passed away earlier this month, he was still hard at work on a few new products for Apple. One was probably the next iPhone (meaning the one after the just-released iPhone 4S). Two other possibilities include digital textbooks and most notably, an Apple television set. All of this got me thinking.
Under Tim Cook and the rest of an extremely experienced and capable executive team, Apple is clearly in good hands going forward. Yes, Apple fell a bit short of Wall Street expectations last quarter, but they still destroyed their own, and next quarter promises to be a blowout. Further, all the talk of Apple’s internal university to instill the “Apple way” in employees even without Jobs is good news as well. But the truth is that Apple will not likely face their first true post-Jobs test until they release their first truly new product. That execution will shed light on Apple’s future.
In the next few months, Apple is probably going to unveil a new iPad. It will probably have a high resolution screen and a few other great new features. But the iPad is now already an established category for the company. Apple will sell millions of a new version regardless of how they handle the roll out. The same is true with the next iPhone. Unless they truly screw up the product in some way that’s very unlikely to happen (again, see: killer executive team), it’s going to be a huge hit. New Macs, same story.