Will Android force Apple to play a prevent defense?

I've written in the past about how iPod is a trojan horse for Apple. It funds Apple R&D and marketing. It brings children and seniors into the Apple fold. It gets visitors by the millions into Apple Stores. It helps to sell a billion songs and shows on iTunes. iPod clears the path towards  iTunes and App Store. With iPod Touch, shows users how magically delicious is Apple's iOS operating system.

And, with the spread of (mostly free) WiFi, can even soon be used as a reliable VoIP phone along with gaming console and netbook.

It is virtually impossible to overstate the importance of iPod, both for Apple's current success and its historic rise from the ashes. Consider just how small, how marginal was Apple nearly 10 years ago, in 2001, when they first introduced the iPod. Which begat iTunes, which begat iPhone, which begat App Store, which begat iPad. From the iPod, a glorified MP3 player, Apple is destroying Microsoft, Nokia, the music industry, entertainment, communications and so much more.

Now, they are the most valuable tech company in the world, one of the world's most valuable companies, in fact, and are sitting on a cash hoard of over $50 billion. And still growing.

And there is still no answer for the iPod. Ten years on almost and the smartest guys in the room still can't figure out how to stop iPod. Not Google. Not Microsoft. Not Sony. Not Dell. Not Amazon. Not Archos. No one. After ten years. Apple absolutely crushes the global competition in 'MP3' players, online music and entertainment. Plus, it leverages the iPod not only for its cash but as a wedge to bring in more and more users into its growing iOS ecosystem.

Which makes me wonder. Are they now going to start playing a prevent defense?

For you non-Americans, a "prevent defense" is a term used in (American) football. When one team has a big lead, rather than having their defense remain aggressive, which typically works well but could give up a big play, the defense goes into a 'prevent'. This allows the other team to seemingly march down the field, unstopped, but, it is hoped by the defense, to not actually score. As most fans will tell you, this is certain doom. It seems like the prevent defense never works as it should.

For so long Apple has utterly dominated the market that iPod competes in that they have been able to treat the device like a popular food item. At this point, it's all about shelf space and targeting. There's the iPod Shuffle. The Nano. The Classic. The Touch. Which one works best for you? Your spouse? Your children? Maybe you should have more than one. It's sort of like how there are now about a dozen versions of Cheerios. This has also allowed Apple to continuously update the iPod and create various new form factors. Yes, this is to ensure they have an iPod made for everyone's liking. But, it also means that Apple gets to experiment. To learn what each customer/group likes, how they use it, what they use it for primarily, when and where they use it. It enables Apple to understand what forms work best for what situations and price points.

All without fear of competition. This year's version of the iPod Shuffle didn't work? No big deal, the other ones are selling well and we will change this version within a year. Not like we're gonna lose a sale to [insert weak competitor here].

Apple has been operating like this for ten years now. Which, I'm guessing, has given them a completely false sense of reality. Because, that is not how markets work. Certainly, not in the tech sector. You don't get a ten-year lead. You don't get to own a market. You don't get free and unfettered opportunity to tweak and experiment and target markets and products to determine what works best for the various customer groups -- and your singular bottom line.

Well, strike that. Sometimes you do. Like Windows. Of course, then, as with Microsoft, comes the day of reckoning. When the world has shifted and needs have changed and opportunities are borne that leave you marginalized. Is this what will happen to Apple? The iPod is their trojan horse that has spawned a computing revolution. Has it made them complacent? Has it made them take their eyes off the prize? iPhone now contributed more to Apple's bottom-line than anything else. Unlike with the iPod, however, they don't get the market to themselves. Has the fact that, unlike with the iPod, their revolutionary iPhone had, at best, only a 2-year headstart, made them fearful? Over-reactive? And the competition is catching up fast.

Will Apple, out of fear or haste or complacency reject potential innovative changes to their industry-leading iPhone? Will it cause them, as with antennagate, to rush something to market? Will they feel the same sense of opportunity to experiment with different form factors, as they long have with iPod, in a market they do not control and which is changing faster than any they've ever been in? Might they feel that competition no longer affords them the chance to get their device perfect? And perfection is their hallmark.

Time will tell. I know employees at Apple (HQ) read this site. Care to comment? Send me anonymous insight? Has the company, or at least your department, become more conservative, more reactionary, changed or not changed in these past two years? Has the successful rise of Android altered how teams are behaving, decisions made?