I agree. This article comes off as confused and unguided. First it mentions the "inability of analysts (or anyone) to understand Apple" (unpredictable). Then, it says Apple's hit-driven business results in their product refreshes being incremental/expected (predictable).

The self-contradictory ramble continues. He mentions how Apple knows how to design a user experience, rather than being design-blind and spec-obsessed, then goes on say that Apple has hardware spec issues, and that's a "dilemma". What...?

To top it all off, Apple is actually leading as far as hardware specs go (unless by "good specs" you mean "cram every feature you possibly can into the chasis without regard for user experience whatsoever"). The retina display is one obvious example. I wouldn't even consider a tablet without one at this point. The iPad 3's GPU is yet another example of Apple's hardware advantage. The fact that they bested NVIDIA, a company dedicated to designing the best GPUs, is extremely impressive.

Imagine you're a consumer walking into a store to buy a laptop/tablet/phone. From your perspective, who is leading the pack in every way that actually matters to you? I don't see a dilemma here for apple.