Great monopolies create great antagonists. Apple has become that kind of company: loved and hated equally, with products that usually cause everykind of feelings, but almost never indifference.

2015 was a weird year from Apple, with products that many of us have rendered as unoriginal, beta devices that according to some editors ‘kinda sucked‘.

They probably did on some fronts, and now the analysts predict Apple will have a ‘difficult’ 2016. iPhone sales ‘will go negative for the first time in history‘, iPads won’t recover, and there are no products that could maintain Apple current growth.

The fact is, even with that kind of assesment I’m pretty sure Apple will again be bigger than before. The products they have released in 2015 are mediocre on most cases, but even considering that the sales have been impressive. I think Apple is the only tech company that has been able to cross a siginificant border: the one in which product quality is not as important as the brand itself.

I wonder if that will be enough on the next 12-24 months to maintain Apple where it is now, but what I’m sure right now is that Apple is not going to have a tough year. They know exactly where they want to be. And that could be pretty different to what we would like them to be.