The Back Page: Bobbing for Apples

Once again, it’s the sPOooOOkiest time of year at Apple Park: Yes, the end of the fiscal year. WooooOOoOoO! When financial analysts haunt Tim Cook and Luca Maestri in order to find out how much cash Apple has taken home from customers in its oversized plastic jack o’lantern: apparently around $90.1 billion dollars worth of fun-size Milky Ways and M&Ms. And if you very listen closely, you can hear the mournful howl of Gene Munster still sad about the Apple television set never arriving.

Of course, the analysts are trying their level best to gull Tim Cook into admitting something—anything—about the future of Apple’s products, much like ghouls and revenants who hunger for a mere bite of flesh. These damned souls are doomed to remain unsated, but perhaps this is where I may be of service to them. Here, then, is a list of what some in their blasted profession might calls the “puts and takes”, but which I am dubbing…the tricks and treats of the past Year in Apple to date.…