First things first, though Apple did poke its head above the $3T market cap level, as of this writing, Apple’s market cap sits at $2.81 trillion.

But I digress.

The core of the linked article is a list of the five products that made Apple what it is today. Before you follow the link, try to guess what those five products are.

No spoilers, but there is one product I definitely see as missing from the list. Should be a list of at least seven, if not more.

Have you worked up your list, checked out the headline linked list? Here are the two I’d add:

– AirPods
– LaserWriter

Any you’d add?

Korea Herald:

> Apple will allow alternative payment systems in South Korea in compliance with a new local law that bans app store operators from forcing their own in-app payment systems, the country’s telecommunications regulator said Tuesday.
>
> The move came as a new law went into effect in the country in September last year, restricting app store operators, such as Google and Apple, from forcing their in-app payment systems on developers.

And:

> Apple said it plans to provide an alternative payment system at a reduced service charge compared with the current 30 percent charge, as the tech giant turned in its compliance plans to the Korea Communications Commission (KCC).

No specific info on how much Apple will charge when alternative payment system is used, how the mechanism will work, or when this new system will be turned on.

Yesterday was the 15 year anniversary of that fantastic Steve Jobs iPhone announcement (video embedded below).

One of my favorite “iPhone is never going to succeed” quotes and, I believe, the origin of the John Gruber coined “claim chowder” is this, from then Palm CEO Ed Colligan:

>Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John Markoff at a Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off the idea that any company — including the wildly popular Apple Computer — could easily win customers in the finicky smartphone sector.
>
> “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

I love this quote. Turns out, as Gruber points out in the headline linked post, the original quote was slightly different. If the Gruber claim chowder quote means anything to you, check out the slightly revised quote so you get your bit of history right.

Also, don’t miss that bit in the video below, right at 3:49 (and captured in this tweet), where Steve shows off his sense of humor.

Tim Higgins, Wall Street Journal:

> Soon after 19-year-old Adele Lowitz gave up her Apple iPhone 11 for an experimental go with an Android smartphone, a friend in her long-running texting group chimed in: “Who’s green?”

And:

> That pressure to be a part of the blue text group is the product of decisions by Apple executives starting years ago that have, with little fanfare, built iMessage into one of the world’s most widely used social networks and helped to cement the iPhone’s dominance among young smartphone users in the U.S.

Astonishingly, the Piper Sandler annual survey of teen habits reports that 87% of US teens own an iPhone.

You could argue that the blue/green bubble issue is at least part of the reason why.

More from the WSJ:

> “In the absence of a strategy to become the primary messaging service for [the] bulk of cell phone users, I am concerned the iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s chief software executive, said in a 2013 email

And:

> Phil Schiller made a similar case to Chief Executive Tim Cook in another email: “Moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us,” he said. Another warning that year came from a former Apple executive who told his old colleagues in an email that “iMessage amounts to serious lock-in.”

When an Android (i.e., green bubble) user joins an iMessage thread, the thread turns green. I find this annoying. The color change is not an issue. It’s the fact that functionality changes once that blue bubble thread turns green. For example, when I send an image as part of a mixed green thread, the send often (but not always) times out and fails.

Obviously, the Android team wants this changed (see this tweet in response to the WSJ article from Google Senior VP Hiroshi Lockheimer). Question is, will Apple budge on this?

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

> Ever since Apple removed the headphone jack on the iPhone 7 in 2016, rumors have swirled that Apple eventually aims to ditch the Lightning port next for a completely portless design. Indeed, analysts originally predicted that the highest-end ‌‌iPhone‌‌ 13 would offer a “completely wireless experience.” Of course, that didn’t happen, but a portless iPhone 14 in 2022 looks just as unlikely, for the following reasons.

There’s this:

> With no Lightning port, you wouldn’t be able to physically connect your iPhone directly to a computer to reset an unresponsive iPhone through recovery mode.

But, more importantly:

> In 2020, Eric Ravenscraft of Debugger found that wireless charging uses around 47% more power than wired charging for the same amount of power.

Here’s a link to that article, titled Wireless Charging Is a Disaster Waiting to Happen.