A family friend said that if it wasn't for the ipod then the apple computer wouldn't be around still. I was under the impression the computer sales were increasing steadily before the ipod was released? Has the apple inc's computer (mac computers) share gone up or stayed the same or even decreased?
What are peoples view's on apple's future, more so the apple computers future. Since the dropped the "computer" moniker from their official title do you think they will stop producing apple computers eventually?

Apple's sales are increasing at a much faster rate than the computer industry as a whole. They have been selling record breaking numbers of Macs year on year for the last several years. Recently Apple's stock value rose higher than Dell's where they are now the #3 computer company.

The iPod certainly got Apple noticed and had people looking at their equipment again, but things were improving long before that when Steve Jobs returned to the company.
The original Imac was probably their biggest success since the original Macintosh, and that was long before the iPod.

There are a couple of reasons for the name change to Apple, Inc. Firstly, Apple decided that if it couldn't break Microsoft's stranglehold in the industry then it would create a whole new market based around the Macintosh as the digital hub of a series of lifestyle products. They don't only work with Mac's but they often do more, and work flawlessly with them. Secondly, Apple had a long running dispute with the Beatles over copyright issues with the Apple company name. Recently those differences were settled out of court to the satisfaction of both groups involved, and gave Apple full control over their name. The change reflects the changing product range and because there were no longer any legal barriers to do so.

The biggest factor in Apples resurgence, I think, has been the move to open company branded and owned stores all over the world. People can now go get a hands on, hard sell free, look at anything they offer. Previously larger retailers treated Apple products like lepers and their untrained sales staff steered people towards PC gear they knew something about.

Marketshare is a misleading concept. There are some markets Apple doesn't even try to enter, like corporations.
In the markets that Apple does compete in, their market share has rarely dropped over the years (even when they nearly went under in the early 90's) and these days is increasing at a fast rate of knots. Apple sells more consumer laptops than anybody. In other markets, such as publishing, media production (film, music, arts), education, graphics design, they are either the market leaders or dominate their sector.
Apple is also branching out into areas it has never ventured before, like servers and biotech.

Even with Vista stalling at the starting gate, Microsoft isn't going to go away anytime soon, but Apple is on the up in a major major way. Their star is on the rise again.