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How America benefits from Apple
Apple has gone from near death in the 1990s to the pinnacle of success two decades later. TIME tech journalist Ben Bajarin notes in a post today that the company is a highly important and necessary part of the American economy and says that "America needs Apple to keep doing what it's doing." Probably the biggest point Bajarin makes is that Apple now drives economic growth in the country. During a deep recession, the company showed record growth and revenues. Apple didn't stay stagnant during this recession or the previous dot-com bust; instead, the company invested in retail stores and completely new product lines (iPod in the early 2000s, iPad in the 2010s). Apple's impact on the S&P 500 was remarkable in the last quarter; if Apple had been taken out of the picture, the S&P 500 growth rate would have been only half (around 3 percent) of the figure with the company. Bajarin also points out the positive impact of the iOS app economy, which by Apple's own measures has created about 210,000 jobs. Add to that the huge number of accessory manufacturers that have sprung up in the U.S. (think of DODOcase and Pen & Quill, for example), and the impact is even greater. Apple has made America technologically competitive again, with the most wildly popular consumer electronics products not coming from Asia or Europe but from the U.S. Bajarin also postulates that American cell phone companies wouldn't have invested as much in 3G and 4G networks if the iPhone hadn't been around to create the need for those networks. It's time to take the "pie" out of the old saying and just say "It's as American as Apple."
