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Originally Posted by HansTWN
You are ignoring the elephant in the room.
I am looking at the trend. The last two versions of iDevices (ipad 3 and iphone 4s) were no design changes but just spec upgrades. For the iPhone that means no new design in over 2 years. So the real question will be: "how much of Apple's success was Steve Jobs' doing and how has he managed to pass on his skills inside the organization?"
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That's no elephant. That's how most computer companies work; keep the existing case designs as long as possible and just change out the innards to make a newer model. Apple did it with the original Mac thru the Mac plus (although the Plus had an extra hole for the SCSI port), the SE and SE/30, the Classic and Classic II, the six-slot Mac II line, the three-slot Mac II line, the three different styles of Tanzania-board PowerMac (tower, desktop, and all-in-one), many of the iMacs and all the Mac Mini line, and all that. In some cases, the only difference in models was the price and the sticker on the front.
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Apple is well positioned, no doubt. But I have my doubts that they can execute as they have in the past. We will know soon enough, if Apple without Steve still has what it takes. Given the fact that (as many of them here consistently state) the Apple users don't really care about specs it will take new designs to move forward. And to grow as they have in the past few years, they would need a new product line.
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I disagree; I think the iPad's design is a great study in minimalism. The only thing I'd add is an outbound USB port, but that's relatively minor. I don't see how a different design would add any new functionality to it.