Maps is the most obvious misstep, but it isn’t the only one Apple has made recently.

There has been a trail of failures and dead ends the past few years that people don’t talk nearly as much about. They include Mobile Me, Ping, Siri, Apple TV and the ongoing mess that is the desktop version of iTunes. And iCloud is clunky because it’s about trying to change the way we work, whether we like it or not…

Without the ability to launch a new platform as bold as the iPod, iPhone and iPad, it gets harder and harder for Apple to truly innovate. The problem isn’t that Apple is failing to do what it has always done, it’s that its ability to “think different” might go away.