Does Apple's shadow still loom over CES?

At the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, one company always comes up during the cocktail conversations and hallway chats of the show. Its presence looms large and can be seen everywhere, even though it never attends CES.
That company is Apple, the undisputed juggernaut of the consumer electronics world and the planet's most valuable company (even with its recent stock slump).
Ever since Apple unveiled the iPhone, the rest of the consumer electronics world has been playing catchup. Samsung, Acer, Dell, Motorola, HTC, Nokia, Microsoft and others have been making up ground in the smartphone wars