Happy New Year
Welcome to my new blog about the extended Apple ecosystem where we will also take critical looks on related topics in tech, business, productivity and sometimes also politics. ApplePi is inspired by John Gruber's great Daring Fireball, but since I am from Austria, we will take a more European spin on many things.
So what can we expect from 2023? The old year left the world in a quite volatile state: the war in Ukraine is dragging on with Russia bombarding major infrastructure nearly every day, North Korea is threatening stability in Asia, we did not see much progress in the global understanding of battling climate change, and the stock markets are practically in their worst shape since a hundred years. We also lost many great personalities in 2022 - just a few days ago first football superstar Pelé and fashion icon Vivienne Westwood died (who interestingly was married to an Austrian).
Naturally, it also wasn't a perfect year for Apple:
So there is your surprise for today: Apple is this year’s biggest stock-market loser. [MarketWatch]
But the good news for Apple is that according to MarketWatch this is not the whole story: although AAPL lost $846 billion, its stock only dropped by 26.8% - which is basically nothing compared to other tech companies (we have seen drops up to more than 70%).
And wait, there might also be at least some good news for the world as well:
- The western world and its allies are still standing united behind Ukraine in a unity no one thought possible (especially Putin)
- US president Joe Biden is investing close to $400 billion in clean energy tech to fight global warming. A major signal of change after the dark ages of Trump
- Nuclear fusion research has had a major breakthrough by achieving fusion ignition for the first time at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Of course practical applications are still decades off, but this is the proof of concept for cheap green energy we were waiting for
- And Apple might finally be ready to launch its much rumoured AR glasses in the New Year, or maybe not? Only Tim Cook knows...
So not everything is bad, but we have to continue fighting for what's right if we want to make a change.
In this regard, kudos to Greta Thunberg, or in the words of George Takei who also does not seem to be a big Elon Musk fan (anymore?):
"So...Elon Musk let Andrew Tate back on Twitter, and Tate promptly used it to reveal his whereabouts to authorities in Romania who then arrested him.
All because Greta Thunberg owned him so hard his little wee-wee fell off.
Do I have that right? Please say I have that right. [George Takei via Twitter]"
So even at the end of the year already some good things are starting to happen - let's take this as a good sign!
Let me at this point also thank our sponsors: Wolfgang Bartelme for the gorgeous design and Elemental Tools for hosting this blog.
With this, I wish you a Happy New Year and that everything turns out for the better for you and your loved ones in 2023!