An article published in Forrester Magazine by Harris Collingwood offers an interesting take on Apple’s cult-like popularity and its recent successes in the marketplace. “Apple’s success can be boiled down to five simple rules (PDF) that apply not just to Apple but to other companies as well. The rules aren’t foolproof (for one thing, they tend to work better when Steve Jobs is running the company), but they may be useful to other CEOs who want to place their companies outside the mainstream—and out of the range of critics. Of course, your products had better be as good as Apple’s too.”