By Dan Moren

November 29, 2024 11:08 AM PT

The Back Page: Thank Tim you’re here!

Here in the United States, it’s our annual tradition of Thanksgiving, in which we prepare way more food than any group of people we can eat. Also, we give thanks for the things that we are grateful for over the past year, such as…uh…there was that…no…maybe when…oh, right…how about that one…oh did they? Geez. Well, I’m sure I’ll come up with some any time now.

As your local and organically sourced Apple columnist, it seems only appropriate that I take this occasion to call out a few things that I’m grateful Cupertino has bestowed upon us in the last year. I mean, without Apple, where would I be?¹

Run DMA: Who doesn’t enjoy a good battle royale? Forget Apple taking on Microsoft or Google; it’s graduated to the big time now: an entire continent. The amount of back-and-forth, back-and-forth between the European Commission and Apple is like watching a tennis match where one player is slamming the ball as hard as they can while the other is tipping it gently back over the net with minimal effort. Also there are billions of dollars at stake. What I’m saying is that I’m finally starting to see why people enjoy sports.

The Vision Pro provides: With the Apple Car out of the running, we’ve been badly in need of a new punchline, and the Vision Pro has delivered in spades. A ridiculous looking headset that’s mainly good for playing movies and occasionally pretending that you can still afford to go to the beach after you’ve spent all your money on the thing that lets you pretend you can go to the beach? Frankly, I’m starting to wonder if that $3,499 price tag was just so we could all have something to sit back and have a good laugh at. Come on, these are hard times; everybody deserves a little humor.

Not so intelligent, are you?: The main reason I appreciate how much Apple has spent developing and promoting its Apple Intelligence features is that they are all still so bad it makes me look great by comparison. Although, to be fair, I’ve been drawing people with six fingers since I was a kid, and nobody’s ever decided to invest billions of dollars in me. At least the next time my parents lament the ridiculous amount of money that my education did cost, I can at least point out that I write a better email than a computer.

Money money money money…monnnnneyyyyy: Apple making billions of dollars every quarter doesn’t directly benefit me, but I’m honestly glad because it seems to empower the company to feel like it can do whatever weird things it wants to (see the Vision Pro). Oh no, your growth slowed this last quarter and you only made $20 billion in profit? The horror. Why don’t you go build a robotic HomePod or something—that will make you feel better. I don’t miss the days of worrying that Apple might go out of business any minute—but I am now concerned about the world exploding first. Real trade-off vibes there.

The M1 chip: Here we are, four years later, and my M1 MacBook Air is going strong. Stronger than ever, I’d argue. Last night I caught it bench-pressing my M2 Pro Mac mini just for fun. Honestly, I’m a little scared of it now, which is why I will, uh, definitely not be replacing it any time soon. (Help.) It’s just so good at what it does, that I may never need to buy another computer. (I’m whispering because it can hear me.) So, Apple should probably just stop building new M-series processors already—why bother when it already achieved perfection the first time around? (I’m AirTagging myself now, please come find me before it does.)

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]