Apple is always one step ahead of the game. All their competitors are constantly trying to get to where Apple's products are, but by the time they get there, Apple has moved on to something even better.

Intel is scared about Apple becoming the dominant PC maker, especially because Apple has been using non-Intel chips in their new premier products (iPad and iPhone). My guess is that Apple's next big move is to start selling something in the laptop space that uses either the A5 processor or the next generation of it, which I guess would be called the A6. This will be huge. Intel processors are major power hogs and there's no way they can make them significantly better. Apple is poised to release a laptop with the Air's form factor that runs iOS on an A5 or A6 that Apple manufactures.

This could be an absolute coup if it happens. They will be selling something like the 11" Mac Air for between $600 and $700, possibly less. It would have sick battery life that nobody could touch. It will run all of the iPad apps, have Safari and all of Apple's Office replacement software. The best part is that nobody could compete with it, because the only way would be to also ditch Intel's x86 processor, but there's no other OS or developer ecosystem that could run on it. Maybe Android on an ARM processor. Microsoft has nothing lined up in this space. They are dead in the water.

The best part is that you don't need Jobs to make this happen. What you need is the manufacturing knowledge and capacity that someone like Cook can deliver.