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Yup, it's just the predicted (and somewhat delayed) result of Jobs' death. Without that dictatorial, determined, and tasteful driver/asshole, they've become another mediocre technology company, just as they were headed under Sculley.

As we discussed yesterday, from Forbes, "According to CNBC, Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, called the event "the night Apple became average."

Noted tech pundit Zafiro17 concluded "For Apple, that's about the most damning comment they could receive. Being average means they have failed, the 'reality distortion reactor' has stopped spinning, and Apple products are just one of the bunch. What could be worse?"

When your "one more thing" is a widely anticipated watch that underdelivers in EVERY possible way from even the basest expectations and most childish mockups, you've begun to simply suck.

On the one hand, it's nice to see their bizarre ascendancy stall, and on the other hand it's a bit scary going back to a wild west of crappy directionless products from every manufacturer including Apple. The winner in this, of course, is the Googles, who have the uniform platform that underpromises and for the most part overdelivers through the miracle of greed and competition from multiple manufacturers, some of whom are even innovative. (I say this as a libby liberal.)