By the time the iPhone came out, they were already innovator dilemmaed to death. They could either choose to double down on their existing customers and be slow

By the time the iPhone came out, they were already innovator dilemmaed to death. They could either choose to double down on their existing customers and be slowly nibbled to death or leap across the chasm to mainstream customers and fall into the pit. The only way they could have survived was if they had started 5 years before and came up with the iPhone themselves, which wasn't going to happen. Faced with two bad paths, the path I would have liked to see them take is to accept defeat and organize the slow windup of the company over the next 20 years, returning as much cash back to the shareholders as possible. But good luck convincing a CEO to ever do that to their career.