The Back Page: Murder on the Cupertino Express

I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve called you all here to this elegant dining car. It’s simple: one of you—yes, one of you—is a murderer.

Spare me your protestations! One of you has brutally killed Apple’s profit margins in cold blood. A detestable crime, in this day and age. If we cannot protect shareholder value, what, then is sacred?

So you will permit me, before identifying the guilty party, to say a few words? Thank you. For it will surprise none of you, certainly, that Apple’s margins had no shortage of enemies.

Take you, MacBook Neo. Was it you who wished to carve into Apple’s profits by providing a low-cost alternative to PC laptops? That $599 price point was attractive, wasn’t it? Too attractive to possibly be allowed to stand. And that made you angry, didn’t it?

Not so fast, Mac mini. You may laugh, but was it not your voracious appetite for memory and storage on behalf of your AI agents that precipitated this whole crisis in the first place?…