Steven Jobs was an absolute beast at devouring consumers and generating (flooding) the company with cashflow via yet another handheld device. With Steve at the wheel, that flood of cashflow was able to directly fuel the next device R&D with very few market misses. Welcome to the end of that long road. Tim has nothing on the horizon that comes close to the lighting-in-a-bottle, handheld revolution that Steve started with the iPod. What you are finally witnessing is the common thread in Apple's 'alignment' over a very long time is simply APPL.