Simon Wardley has an interesting piece on the potential failure (and bankruptcy) of Apple by 2017, with yesterday’s iPhone launch as a supporting act. I can’t see Apple in chapter 11 by 2017, but last nights iPhone event was definitely very interesting for the negative reactions from spectators.

There was no breakthrough hardware, and all the comparison slides I saw from Apple actually listed existing devices from Android-based competitors saying “Look, we now have a marginal edge” or “We now have parity”, something far away from Apple’s more common dominant position.

Certainly in terms of individual components, the competitors to Apple now have equivalent technology available to them, and it’s just a case of whether companies can package them well enough. The equivalence of technology should surprise no one, given Samsung’s position as a major Apple supplier, along with being the major Android manufacturer. Right now, with the Galaxy S2, Samsung have got a great package, which Apple obviously recognise. Hence the lawsuits between Apple and Samsung – if you can’t beat them with technology, beat them with patents…

The only area Apple still has a differentiator is in the software, and the launch of Siri was definitely a step forward from Apple that nobody else has made yet. But if you don’t think that Google are working on the same things (see Google Voice Search, integrated into most Android phones), then I think you’re being a little naive.

Perhaps the final indicator of Apple’s slide towards mediocrity is the timing of their event – before the Google Nexus Prime launch, rumoured to launch in a couple of weeks with the newest version of Android. A confident, strutting Apple would have delayed their release until within a day or 2 of the Nexus Prime, knowing that the Apple announcement would have stolen most of the coverage of the upstart Android.

Instead, Google now have a disappointed group of people waiting for something interesting, the question now is can they deliver where Apple didn’t?