Why worry if Apple fail?

There’s a lot of angst over whether Apple can continue to lead the pack after Steve Job’s death. There’s something strange about all this: many people outside Apple are worried on Apple’s behalf. They’re rooting for Apple as if they themselves somehow depend on Apple.

Thing is, outside Apple’s walls, what happens to Apple doesn’t matter. Arguably, Apple will stop being successful when someone else starts to out-perform them. As a consumer, this is just awesome: someone has come along producing better products! Better things produced through competition.

Looking inwards, I’m not sure whether I feel loyalty to Apple. Their laptops and operating system are undoubtedly the best for my needs — for the moment. I moved to Apple primarily because OS X is a more user-friendly Unix than Linux. I think many people did. The closer Apple move OS X towards iOS, the less appealing OS X may become as the features I rely upon — like Terminal — receive less attention. I can imagine sticking with Apple’s hardware, which remains top quality, but moving to another operating system.

Still, Apple show no signs of falling behind just yet.