Interesting article from Asymco on Apple's roadmap going into 2023.

Apple in mid-2023
http://www.asymco.com/2020/12/17/apple-in-mid-2023/

Some broad notes: Apple's sheer size gives it's internal R&D, manufacturing process, and the integrated nature of it's software, hardware and services macroeconomic scale effects that analyst wonks can go deep on.

This nugget in particular I thought would be of interest to shareholders and dividend investors:

Next, capital returns. The company [Apple] is returning almost all the cash it generates and is reducing its cash balance. It has returned about half a trillion dollars to date. Dividends paid has reached $100 billion and share buybacks about $400 billion. This is the largest capital return in US history.

The company has declared its intention to reduce net cash to zero. This means it will still have substantial cash due to loans in the form of bonds but no “excess” cash will be held by the company. This is in contrast to the strategy under Steve Jobs where he sought to keep as much cash on hand as possible due to the need to weather potential storms, Tim Cook’s Apple is being very “casual” about cash.