I'm willing to buy that Apple's strategy my have long term vulnerabilities. But it's a little hard to see how you come to the conclusion that an economic downturn will effect them badly, as a high end product company. First of all, the high end products actually tend to be effected the least in downturns, because the people with the most money are least effected by downturns and can keep spending. Secondly, the actual reality right now in the worst economic crisis in decades it that Apple is having record profits. It seems like reality belies whatever argument one might want to make about it.

I think Apple's future as a high end product manufactuere with a niche (albeit a pretty large and hugely profitable one) will depend on it's ability to continue to innovate and stay ahead of the curve. Apple has profited from taking ideas, putting them together in a newly appealing way, and doing it first. Let's not forget that it was Apple that popularized the graphical mouse driven desktop, with multi-tasking. Of course, it's a lot of pressure to keep pulling these kind of innovations off. And Apple has had some flops, for sure. And whether or not Apple will survive someday without Steve Jobs seems like a big question too.

Yes, this is why I think Google/Android is the one to beat. Google whole business is built around highly integrated, well designed, web based apps and services. Add to that Chrome and Android, and giving the platform away for free, and it just hard to see others keeping up. Google has such a huge head start.