We now know the iPhone and Apple jumped the shark in 2011

I'm not sure even a little leather and beach time can save Apple.

(Credit: Eric Mack / CNET) You wouldn't know it from the sales numbers, the monstrous profits and the insidious hype, but the decline of iOS, the iPhone and perhaps even all of Apple 2.0 (the 21st century iteration) is now in progress.

This week's Apple media event to introduce an iPhone 5 utterly devoid of any new innovations for the first time ever confirms to me something that I began to suspect at WWDC 2011 -- the Cupertino juggernaut has reached its zenith and has since begun to coast back to earth (although very slowly, with the help of a parachute made of billions in cash). To put it more simply, Apple and the iPhone have jumped the shark.

If you aren't familiar with the term, it's derived from the fifth season premiere of Happy Days in which a be-leather jacketed Fonzie on water skis literally jumps over a shark. The Looney Tunes-esque moment marked a shift in the show that seemed to indicate the writers had run out of ideas and entered a period of creative decline.

In the case of Apple, I believe the shark-jumping moments came last year with the introduction of Siri an... [Read more]