Unanswered Steve Jobs questions

> Maybe he was a closet philanthropist.

Wasn't he a buddhist? My understanding is that buddhism encourages philanthropy without acknowledgement or attribution.

Here's some unanswered Steve Jobs questions of mine I haven't be able to stop thinking about.

Did S.J pick the right successor? S.J built Apple as a machine he controls, optimised for himself, to build many wonderful products. The co-pilot is now in charge. Apple will be able to milk the iPhone, just as it was able to milk the Apple II, but will Apple be able to move on to the next great thing? How long will Apple's success continues for? Assuming it will continue for the next half decade, will we keep getting advances in consumer technology in the 10 years after that?

The question of whether there was a grand plan is certainly an interesting one, but it seems unlikely that in 1998 there was a big whiteboard in Cupertino with "iMac -> iTunes -> iPod -> iPhone -> iPad -> profit!" written on it. But some of those internal steps may have been planned. iTunes came out about 10 months before the iPod did, but obviously the iPod was in development for longer than that. I wonder if iTunes was specifically designed to be the interface between the computer and the iPod? Or if it was just part of a "digital hub" strategy (this was a term Apple bandied about a lot in the early '00s) that was envisioned as being focused on the Mac and that only pivoted when it became clear what a runaway success the iPod was.

More than a plan, it seems that there is a method. Technical advances and Moore's law make different kind of devices first possible, later practical for mass production and finally appealing. Apple seems to be waiting for the last phase to focus all its forces in the release of one optimal product. So far it has had a very good eye.