Poor old Steve Jobs could be excused for feeling more than a little confused right now - on the one hand, he's being praised for the fourth act of the Resurrection Of Apple, while on the other there are suggestions that he's peaked.  In a stonking eight-page article for New York Magazine, John Heilemann paints Jobs as a single-minded, fast-ageing belligerent, frantically steering the good ship Apple toward a product that will, he believes, seal his legacy as helmsman of the iconic company.

Heilemann's discretely masked frotting point seems to be "what if the iPhone fails?" and he illustrates his piece with various supportive and yet simultaneously ill-boding soundbites from big players in the cellphone business.   A rival CEO declines to proffer any advice on the basis that "he'd never take it", while Helio's Sky Dayton flips through the iPhone's other well-noted Achilles heals: no GPS, no user-replaceable battery, no expandable memory.

"He has no idea of the difficulties he’s bringing on himself, trying to do so much, so fast"

Ask Jobs and he'll tell you that the iPhone software is five years ahead of anything else, that already competitors are scrambling to copy his cellphone; you could say that's true, with the launch of the HTC Touch and the growing size of touchscreens in the smartphone sector.  And yet always there's that undercurrent of "what if", primarily centred on the fact that this is all new ground for Apple and, of course, for Steve.

"Jobs has been wrong before. And if the iPhone proves a disappointment, his reputation will take a precipitous tumble: from unerring visionary to just another overreaching mogul"

The iPhone inaugurates a dangerous new era for Steve Jobs [New York Magazine]