My personal bias aside, Apple will be a shell of what it is right now in 3-5 years. Guranteed.
Apple is Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, iPod. Steve Jobs, iTunes. Steve Jobs, iPhone. Steve Jobs, iPad. Steve Jobs, Pixar studios. Steve Jobs, NeXT. Etc, etc, etc.
Who the **** is Tim Cook? He's no Jobs, and that's for damn sure. What has he done as CEO so far? Taken what Jobs has created and added a few features. What's Cook going to do long term for the growth of Apple? Technology is a tough, tough sector, in fact one of the most unforgiving. Especially phones. 2 years (at most) per phone, then you move on to the next best thing. I don't picture Cook coming up with any iPhone or iPad-like revolutionary ideas that will change squat.
Jobs was so involved with what Apple was doing, he would criticize certain colors on icons because they weren't perfect. He was a master marketer, a master business man, a master desginer, and he had a chokehold on literally everything. Look at the iPhone5. It leaked out several months in advance, from several sources. Think that would happen with Jobs at the helm?
Aside from all that hyperbole, you don't need to look farther than history to figure out what's going to happen to Apple.
I highly reccomend the read "From Good to Great", a business book, which chronicles companies that had extended periods of mediocricy, followed by a period of >10 years of unbelievable success (a bubble), followed by more mediocricy or bankruptcy.
What did all these companies have in common when they went through their periods of success? The CEOs. Each and every CEO shared the same qualities, the exact qualities Jobs exhibited while he was alive.
And in every, single, case: Within 5 years of the "star" CEO stepping down (or dying in this case), every, single, one of those companies fizzled into nothingness.
Cook can only ride the current crop of devices so long. Yeah, the iPhone5 is selling like crazy right now. But we all know the iPhone and iOS are getting played out. Even iPhone users admit it. Sooner or later the iPhone and iOS are going to need a major redesign, and when it sucks, forget about Apple, they're done.
Just remember how much Apple sucked when Jobs wasn't there.
I can't stand Ballmer as a person, but give him credit. He knows the PC and the Windows model is stale and took a HUGE risk on Windows 8. Guy has definetely got balls. There's no growth in the current Windows model, and no matter how many people tear Windows 8 apart because of the "Metro" interface, Ballmer made the right decision. It was either take a risk and make a radical change, or watch Windows die a slow, ridiculous, painful death.
If Windows 8, fails MS is effectively done in the long term. They need to succeed in the consumer market and they are going all in with this. A failure would be catastrophic. If they do, they might as well just concentrate on the enterprise and the Xbox.