The key product has been the phone. The computers and the tablets don't have the volume or the convenient payment mechanism. People on contracts just pay for these iPhones without caring too much about it being real money.
Anyway, the oxygen supply died on the phone a while ago but the momentum of the whole mobile phone business was such that nobody has noticed that the solid rocket boosters ran out of fuel and were chucked away three years ago.
Only if you work in the sector do you really appreciate how it has all changed. But if you build a business and an eco system around constant growth then things do fall back to earth rather quickly when everything stops growing. Sales may be magnificent but that is no good if there is no growth and the world has come to expect growth.
An ever growing business does not have to be efficient. Losses can be covered over because more sales make the previous mismanagement of expenses seem like small beer money.
Apple de-coupled the figures so we don't know how many units were shifted. Then they say that they are selling services now. But this isn't going to fill the hole left by the lack of iPhone opening day queues (remember that madness?).
These Chinese phones are going to be the default devices for a lot of people. When it comes to price or function they have it covered. Trade wars are not going to stave that situation off forever.
If you have bought into the Ive Apple eco system it all works perfectly. But if you are an outsider a lot of it seems daft. You can't plug your Apple phone into your Apple computer without dongles, then it doesn't rapid charge if plugged in that way or even move data quickly.
Then, with your Apple computer the touchscreen doesn't work. If you have had pinch to zoom for a while on a normal laptop you find it odd that Apple machines don't have that. The keyboard failings and much else is not necessarily design, sometimes things just don't work out. But when the phone doesn't plug into the computer, then you know that is a design thing.
The product lifecycles have also been bad, same Apple computers year in year out when most laptops get refreshed when new CPUs come out. It is absurd how Apple make what they feel like making not what their customers want. Ive was at the helm and the ship went off course five years ago with only those in the thick of it realising not all was well three years ago when sales started to slow on the product that matters - the phone.