But Apple didn't get to this lofty position by doing the same things over and over. Apple executives will be the first to tell you that maintaining the status quo is no way to stay on top. The company will continue to face challenges and questions in the coming year, and its responses to those will determine whether or not Apple will continue to thrive.

Apple invented the modern tablet market, and--for now, at least--still dominates it. But while would-be iPad competitors such as the and the have come and gone like seasons, more recent upstarts such as the and are chipping away at Apple's once seemingly insurmountable lead.

The perennial rumor, of course, is that Apple will come out with to compete more directly with the increasingly popular 7-inch tablets. , saying that size "isn't sufficient to create great tablet apps," that tablets smaller than the iPad's 10 inches make "clearly the wrong trade-off," and that such tablets are "tweeners--too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad."

Apple wouldn't launch a smaller tablet unless it felt that Jobs's concerns were no longer worth worrying about. (It's not as if Apple has never changed course after a Steve Jobs pronouncement. Just ask anyone who ever owned a .) The rumor mill suggests that a smaller iPad would actually have a screen closer to eight inches than seven, which would help.