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What’s the next leap forward for Apple?

Apple faces a business quandary: amaze the markets all over again, or compete on small improvements.

Apple releases its latest business results, and as usual, the news will be all about the iPhone. Apple’s smartphone and iPad tablet are both, in tech years, practically geriatric. When it comes to the bottom line, Apple has traditionally done best when it innovates. So the question is, can the company deliver a new and revolutionary gadget?

Today the company is simply announcing how much money it made this quarter. Probably about $34 billion — not bad, but analysts expect it will be the third consecutive quarter that the company’s earnings decline.

“What Wall Street wants to see, and what I think the tech industry wants to see, is that Apple is still a thought leader over the next six months to one year,” says chief strategist at TD Ameritrade J.J. Kinahan.

Apple’s success has been built on its ability to deliver innovative new products, and lately that hasn’t happened. “iPad to iPad mini, there isn’t really that much excitement about,” says Kinahan.

Any rumors of new products are so far just that.

“Big rumors that seem the most reliable are a larger screen iPad and a cheaper iPhone,” according to tech writer Brian S. Hall.

He says that if Apple has come up with a mind-blowing Dick Tracy watch, or some other magical device that could catapult the company’s stock price, Apple would likely announce its arrival closer to Christmas.

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