There is a danger to what Apple has as well, in that with every revision they reduce how much they can innovate. Users are willing to buy an iPhone 5 because all the changes are incremental. If the iPhone 6 has a new UI paradigm, Apple will undo a lot of what they've created. If Apple upped the price to a thousand dollars (or lowered it and compromised on part quality) your co-founder would have thought twice.
My point being, every time Apple innovates significantly it throws away a lot of consumer good-will, because it has to rebrand everything. So far the strength of the overall Apple brand has kept this strategy together, but after a few more mis-steps like iOS 6 people might start hesitating before they instinctively 'buy Apple'.
Comments
There is a danger to what Apple has as well, in that with every revision they reduce how much they can innovate. Users are willing to buy an iPhone 5 because all the changes are incremental. If the iPhone 6 has a new UI paradigm, Apple will undo a lot of what they've created. If Apple upped the price to a thousand dollars (or lowered it and compromised on part quality) your co-founder would have thought twice.
My point being, every time Apple innovates significantly it throws away a lot of consumer good-will, because it has to rebrand everything. So far the strength of the overall Apple brand has kept this strategy together, but after a few more mis-steps like iOS 6 people might start hesitating before they instinctively 'buy Apple'.