The other depressing interpretation is that they&#x27;re achieving less per dollar spent on R&amp;D (becoming less efficient); they certainly seem to be achieving less per release of product now, so it would be consistent.  Maybe there was a time when Apple got the most brilliant people wanting to work there because it was Apple; if that&#x27;s no longer true, their efficiency would decrease.<p>(Arguably the same thing happened in K-12 education; when women were largely excluded from other professions, teaching positions were filled by the best women in the workforce; now, many of them would rather be doctors&#x2F;engineers&#x2F;lawyers&#x2F;etc., so the quality of educators has decreased to the market level.)