There's so much Apple could be doing that are a more natural progression from their existing product lines. They could take inspiration from some of their previous consumer efforts to target entirely new product lines, such as a camera (QuickTake), printer (LaserWriter), or game console (Pippin). A modern version of all these would sell out.
Or they could reintroduce their enterprise/business products, such as XServe.
The electric car idea really won't be ready anytime soon, due to limits of neural-net learning speed.
One of the biggest challenges that Apple has, is what would actually be meaningful? I loved a comment I saw recently that highlighted that a 10 digit revenue item can be counted as largely insignificant to a company the size of Apple.
So, if you start looking at product spaces that have:
1. A meaningful market size (ideally all consumers)
2. A price that is significant
3. Enhances the brand image as chic/cool
4. Is global
You don't really discover too many spaces to play in. They're not going to move the needle with a new printer.
Frankly, if I was Tim Cook, I'd just buy Tesla and be done with it. Goodness knows they have the cash, and Elon has signalled previously that he'd be interested in handing over the reigns once the original strategy was delivered.
I'd like to see them get into construction. They could build residential or office space with amazing attention to detail. I'm imagining the level of design that usually goes into a car interior applied to a home or hotel. There are already builders in China exploring mostly prefab highrises - so imagine if Apple started building a few thousand luxury buildings a year and were able to get the costs down.
This is exactly the sort of thinking that leads to companies becoming irrelevant; almost nothing can move the needle for them, so they fail to see the next thing coming.
The initial theory of disruptive innovation from The Innovator's Dilemma is about this exact issue and how companies can deal with it.
The problem they're facing with the big bets is that they can lose big as well. With iPhone sales dropping 30%/year, they're losing about that much revenue also, since the company's revenue is tied so much to that singular product.
A broad product portfolio will always be more stable over the long term.
Or they could reintroduce their enterprise/business products, such as XServe.
The electric car idea really won't be ready anytime soon, due to limits of neural-net learning speed.