The next question that people have, with Steve’s tragic death, is what is the future of Apple? I think if you take a cynical view you will almost generally be right about everything most of the time – whether it is marriage or the future of a company, because very few companies remain at the top of their game for too long a period.

Apple has been down in the dumps before, and only Steve Jobs’ return rescued them and there is no doubt, having outclassed the opposition for 3 or 4 years with the iPhone and now the iPad, sooner or later another firm is going to step up with a product that is either better or at least an equal competitor. I genuinely don’t believe there is any competitor for the iPhone at this time, and nor has there been for the last 3 years. Nobody knows what the future holds, but on the positive side, Steve Jobs’ influence, the people he hired and the teams he put in place will obviously be around for a good few years to come and should keep churning out the hits. On a negative side, no company can lose somebody of that ability and be the same and as already said, companies don’t generally dominate forever – or for too long.

I would imagine that Apple is far ahead enough in the game that their sales for 2012 will be better than ever before, and that may also be true of 2013, but the real test to me would be what products they will launch in late 2013. You can rest assured they are far enough with the 2012 products that their profits and results are going to be better than ever over the next 18 months or so but after that? I would probably have sold the Apple shares I own in about 18 months, regardless of whether Steve Jobs was still at the company.