Yes, yes, Steve Jobs. Look what I'VE done for you lately – Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook has written to his employees to tell them that the past few quarters have been the most successful in the company's history.

To the faithful, only the golden age of Steve Jobs can be described in such terms. But even though he's failed to release an exciting new product range since the first fruity fuhrer was uploaded to iHeaven, Cook put pen to paper to boast about his own successes.

In a hyperbole-laden missive sent to all employees, Cook wrote: "Today we reported Apple’s highest September quarter revenue ever and our strongest revenue growth rate in seven quarters. These very strong results were made possible by your hard work and dedication."

He also boasted of an "amazing lineup" of Christmas goodies, although what this really means is new versions of the iPad and iMac.

Customers are "loving" the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Cook continued, neatly skipping over all mention of any infamous bendgate incidents. The Mac also "set a new all-time record while the rest of the PC market declined".

"The user experience across all our products keeps getting better, thanks to the deep collaboration among our teams," Cook gushed. "iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite have raised the bar for mobile and desktop operating systems, and they work together in elegant, intuitive ways that only Apple can deliver."

Modesty will get you nowhere, it seems.

All this might be true, but once upon a time Apple was famous for designing and building innovative stuff which created whole new industries and redefined and reinvigorated old ones.

If you'll excuse a flight of fancy for a second, take a moment to think about Ancient Greece. People still fondly remember the Classical Era, when Greece shook off its Persian overlords and a flourishing of creativity saw its philosophers, politicians, poets and mathematicians set the foundations for the future of western civilisation.

Fewer people remember what happened after Alexander the Great took over the world and then died young, an era which was later called the Hellenistic Period. Yes, Greece was successful, enormously successful, in these years. But is the Hellenistic period lauded in the same way as the era which birthed Plato, Aristotle and Socrates? No.

Likewise, during Apple's golden age it launched the iMac, the iPad, the Macbook, the iPod and the iPhone, the staff of Cupertino whipped up into a frenzy by the pathologically perfectionist Steve Jobs.

Yeah, Apple is making a hell of a lot more money now than it ever did before. But, again, will anyone really remember the big bucks Tim Cook era? We doubt it. ®