$3 trillion later, maybe it’s time to reset our expectations of Apple

Let’s talk about words.

This week some words were applied to Apple that the Macalope would like to drill down on a bit because he finds them interesting.

No, don’t get up. We’re doing this.

How about “modest”. That’s a word. Here’s Mark Gurman discussing what we might see from Apple in 2022.

After a modest set of device launches in 2021…

Reasonable people may disagree… Well, people may certainly disagree. Is it reasonable to call a year in which Apple announced not one but two professional-level mobile chips that get unheard-of performance per watt “modest”? Just that seems to make it a pretty great year for Apple and that’s not all Apple announced. There might have been one or two other things the company shipped if you look closely.

Also, the company got rid of the Touch Bar. So. QED.

The second half of the sentence is a real bottom slice of bread to this bewildering sandwich.

…Apple Inc. is set for a stronger 2022—with new iPhones, AirPods and potentially a VR headset.

Uh, okay, they had two of those things in 2021 and your third thing is a real maybe.

“Apple stands to have a much better year if it can finally teach monkeys how to fly zeppelins.”

Yeah, wow, that would be something! Probably better than that VR thing.

Which the Macalope may quibble about the use of the word, a “modest” year for Apple is usually a real ripper for any other company so “modest” may be correct from a certain point of view. Like the kind of point of view where I say “Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father” when what I really mean is “He is totally your father and I should know because I’m the guy who cut off his limbs but, in my defense, I told him I had the high ground and he wouldn’t listen so he kinda had it coming.”

Let’s move on to our next word: trillion.

Oh, but you say “Macalope, that’s a number, not a word.” And the Macalope says to you “I can’t hear you, that’s not how this medium works. You must be thinking of telephone, this is an article.” But if the Macalope could hear you he would say that “trillion” is a word that describes a number. So go back to teaching your pedantics class at Neil deGrasse High.

On January 3rd, Apple became the first company to be valued at $3 trillion based on market capitalization. Huzzah! Apple wins again!

At something that is not exactly meaningless but really doesn’t matter that much.

As Casey Newton quipped on Twitter:

This victory belongs to all of us — families who bought iCloud because the entry-level phone only came with 64GB of storage, developers paying 30 percent of their revenue in perpetuity, people who forget to cancel AppleTV+ in between seasons of Ted Lasso …

This is tongue in cheek but, let’s face it, not all of Apple’s business practices are, uh, super cool, shall we say. But the market, much like the badger who loves honey, does not care. So a lot of that not coolness is baked into this valuation. It’s like chocolate chip cookies with walnuts in them.

Seriously, who does that?

Still, it’s just a number. Or a word representing a number. Apple’s no different than it was last week when it was worth a bit less than $3 trillion. And at some point, another company will reach $3 trillion. And it still won’t matter much.

But thinking about the company’s treatment of App Store developers over its rise to THREE TRILLION DOLLARS, it occurs to the Macalope that if you’re the company that’s worth more than any other company in the history of companies, maybe you can afford to be… what’s the word?

Magnanimous.

That’s the word.