When Steve Jobs died in 2011, iPhone sales were still doubling year on year. It is a safe bet that his successor, Tim Cook, is going to preside over the end of continuous growth. In quarterly earnings in two weeks, analysts still expect Apple to have sold 1m or more phones than the 74.5m it achieved in the same quarter last year, with Chinese demand crucial. If it turns out that Apple has sold fewer, it will be a blow to the credibility of Mr Cook, who primed the market to expect growth. But the timing hardly matters. If it is not coming this quarter, the decline is priced in for the next one.

So what? For all its “fanboy” customers, Apple has some Jeremiah shareholders. Since it reported the most profitable quarter in corporate history 12 months ago, its shares have fallen 15 per cent. Yet the stock trades at just 10 times forward earnings. Strip out the massive cash pile and it trades at less than 8 times. Investors know that the end of rampant growth is nigh.

Having risen to well over 50 per cent of group revenues, of course the iPhone matters. But maturity does not mean extinction, and just because Apple has become a phone company does not mean that it is all it ever will be.