Companies are generally in business for profit, not revenue. Revenue is one way to get there, but doesn't always; i.e. you could increase revenue and lower profitability in some situations.

Even so, you already see questions being asked of and about Apple that weren't when Jobs was running the show. It's looking a lot like post-Jobs Apple is upon us more and more, as his influence becomes more of the past, and less of the present and future.

I wouldn't like to be an Apple investor. I just don't have that warm feeling about the company, at all. They seem to be heading for disappointing quarters.

The PC enthusiast market is filled with small companies that have made a living off of niches with high profit margins from liquid cooling to PC modification supplies. There is a reason these same companies don't expand with more affordable products: Less demand and more risk (because those customers are not like higher-end enthusiasts that may purchase more often).

What Cook is saying about Apple is that hiring the extra workforce and R&D just to sustain higher-volume revenue might not be worth the lower margins.

They aren't Dell, Apple is the equivalent of Alienware or Falcon Northwest selling only premium products, except to a larger specific audience due to using their own OS.