The 18 year figure was just illustrative of the fact that I thought he was an order of magnitude off. I didn't mean that a company needs to remain consistent fo

The 18 year figure was just illustrative of the fact that I thought he was an order of magnitude off. I didn't mean that a company needs to remain consistent for 18 years exactly - but it is years of consistency that count, the more the better. As far as Apple's performance - the iPod range is 12 years old at this point. Apple has been producing consistently branded Macbooks since 2006, this line is clearly continuous with the iBooks which go back to 1999. The iPhone range is 6 years old at this point. Consumer OS X is 12 years old - they've only just dropped the cat name motif, and Mavericks is still recognisably a progression from 10.0. Etc.