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As 2023 attracts to a detailed, we take a look at the most effective moments Apple had throughout the 12 months—and never all of them are product-related. Listed below are Apple’s largest hits of 2023.
#5 Apple lastly launched a extra inexpensive large-screen laptop computer with the 15” MacBook Air
For greater than 25 years, followers of Apple’s laptops have harbored one massive criticism: In case you wished a large-screen Apple laptop computer, you have been pressured to shell out $2,000 or extra for a “professional” mannequin with a 15” or bigger display. Apple’s client laptops have all the time been restricted to 13-inch display or smaller. Which means that college students or different “mild” pc customers who merely wished extra space on their desktop both wanted to purchase a 16” MacBook Professional (present beginning value: $2,499), regardless of not needing the facility of a professional laptop computer, or change groups and get a less expensive 15” Home windows PC laptop computer.
However in 2023, Apple lastly gave prospects what they’ve been wanting for years: a low-cost (okay, decrease value) large-screen MacBook. The new 15” MacBook Air begins at simply $1,299, which means that you simply don’t must sacrifice display dimension anymore if you’d like a lower-cost Apple laptop computer. It’s additionally one of many thinnest, lightest, and strongest large-screen client laptops ever made. Better of all, it exhibits that Apple appears extra prepared to take heed to its prospects than ever relating to product growth.
#4 Apple was one of many solely main tech corporations to keep away from mass layoffs
One of many worst issues to befall the tech sector in 2023 was the contraction the trade went by means of. By early December, greater than 1,100 tech corporations laid off greater than 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 staff, based on knowledge compiled by Layoffs.fyi. These layoffs occurred at just about each main firm within the sector, together with Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Spotify.
However not at Apple. As of those closing weeks of 2023, Apple has but to make any vital layoffs. As a substitute, the corporate has discovered different methods to scale back prices, similar to slowing its charge of hiring. The truth that Apple didn’t go on a hiring spree like different tech giants did throughout the pandemic has helped it to have the ability to keep away from mass layoffs now.
In Might 2023, throughout the top of tech job losses, Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner told CNBC that he views mass layoffs as “a final resort” and revealed that “mass layoffs isn’t one thing that we’re speaking about at this second.” To date, Tim Cook dinner has made good on his phrases.
#3 The Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional is the corporate’s most revolutionary product because the iPhone
Many individuals, together with myself, have been by no means actually satisfied that AR/VR blended actuality was the subsequent computing frontier—that’s, till we noticed Apple’s Vision Pro headset. Its unveiling felt like an era-defining occasion not only for Apple, however for the whole trade.
Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional feels magical with its joystick-free controls (you simply use your fingers), and it makes all different present mixed-reality headsets appear like toys compared. Extra importantly, it confirmed customers simply what is feasible on the earth of spatial computing, a time period most hadn’t been acquainted with till that point. I felt as awestruck by the revealing of the Imaginative and prescient Professional as I did the primary time I held the unique iPhone in my fingers in 2007.
After all, the $3,499 value level will restrict the system’s preliminary attraction when it ships subsequent 12 months. Nonetheless, Apple has proven that blended actuality headsets could very effectively be the way forward for computing.
#2 The iPhone embraces USB-C
Look, typically Apple leads, typically it makes a change kicking and screaming. On this case, it appears to have been the latter. Regardless, I’m simply glad the iPhone lastly has USB-C.
Sure, hell froze over this 12 months. With the iPhone 15 collection, Apple finally ditched its decade-old Lightning port on the iPhone in favor of the extra common USB-C port. For the primary time, iPhone customers can now cost their iPhone with the identical plug they use to cost their Android telephones and laptops. This can be a main win each for interoperability in blended iOS/Android system households and for client comfort. It’s additionally the most effective motive in years to improve your iPhone.
Whereas Apple touted all the benefits of the change, the corporate doubtless didn’t go this route as a result of it wished to. As a substitute, EU laws pressured Apple to make its iPhone charging extra suitable and environmentally pleasant.
#1 Tim Cook dinner acknowledges Apple’s CEO succession plans
In 2011, Tim Cook dinner arguably had the best problem of anybody ever stepping right into a CEO function: following in Steve Jobs’ footsteps. However inside years of doing so, most traders felt it was apparent that they had nothing to worry about.
Not solely has Cook dinner made Apple his personal by launching all-new merchandise just like the AirPods, Apple Watch, the Apple TV Plus streaming service, and, most lately, the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, however Apple beneath his management has develop into extra beneficial than Steve Jobs most likely ever dared dream. The weeks earlier than Jobs handed away, Apple had a market cap of round $625 billion. Immediately that market cap is round $2.95 trillion—over 4 and a half instances greater than beneath Jobs.
It’s no marvel, then, that as Cook dinner approaches his thirteenth 12 months as Apple CEO, traders are involved about what is going to occur when he leaves. The excellent news is that in October, Cook dinner confirmed in an interview with Dua Lipa on her podcast At Your Service that he “can’t envision my life with out being there, so I’ll be there for some time.” Better of all, he revealed Apple has “very detailed succession plans” in place, and he needs the subsequent CEO to return from throughout the firm. “There’s a number of for the board to choose from,” Cook dinner mentioned.
The tech trade went by means of large upheaval in 2023, because of every part from mass layoffs to generative AI applied sciences radically altering the know-how panorama. What the trade—and its largest firm—wants greater than ever (particularly as we enter what might be going to be an much more chaotic 2024), is stability and robust management. Tim Cook dinner delivers that. Many will view his want to stay round at Apple for some time as the most important win Apple may have.
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