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Apple has been a victim of its own success. They have been milking their formula for hardware and software over and over with minor modifications. That is not a way to move forward, they need some radical new ideas or they will face a slow but steady decline. Their users are happy, but there is no great incentive to upgrade when a new model comes out and users of other brands see no reason to switch.
They have also distorted the market in the US. Phone buyers pay the same for iphones as they do for other phones, but telcos pay a lot more. Because when selling iphones in the US carriers have to take large minimum quantities off Apple's hands. It also means that carriers have to spend large amounts to advertise for the iphone and push the iphone on their sales floors. As others like Samsung grow more popular it will become more difficult to continue to pull this off. That means profitability will decline.
I am not saying that Apple can't do it, but they better have something really big up their sleeves if they want to return to their previous #1 position. For now they look like the new Microsoft. Which isn't bad.
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