Apple

has been on somewhat of a roll of late, particularly with the M-series chips, which offer blinding fast speed and literally cool machines. Rival Qualcomm claims its new Snapdragon X Elite PC processor is 21% faster than the M3 chip when it comes to multi-core performance, but first indications are that the thermal profile renders it far from being a serious competitor.

The iPad and iPhone have also done well, but the latter market is at or close to the saturation level where Apple will sell almost exclusively to customers already part of their ecosystem. After all, Cupertino has effectively monopolized the mid to high end smartphone market, and the room to grow is limited. Similar comments could be make of the Mac, though its economics are different. There, Apple's high price is offset by their computers' reliability and longevity, making the price point only an entry barrier, not an issue for total ownership cost. It's too soon to comment on this aspect with the Apple Watch, which is also a premium product, for it is more likely in the near term to see continuing growth in both market size and share.

So, what's coming?

Perhaps of most significance for the long term is the Vision Pro Augmented/Virtual reality headset. At $3500 in the U.S. only, this is not a bombshell product in the immediate short term. However, it gets the device into the hands of developers, which is the whole point at this stage. Of course there will be new, cheaper, and better models. Of course they will eventually redefine this whole category of products. How eventually? Three to five years is the Spy's guess.

Decades ago, he wrote of the PIEA (Personal Intelligence Enhancement Appliance) the characters in his AH-SF use on a daily basis. The PIEA was/is a combination of implants, voice and gesture controlled hardware, and standalone interface. It provides Metalibrary access on the go, communications (voicing, visuals, picting, and texting), local data storage, plus high-end computation and analytical tools. There is no headset, just zoomable contact lenses with a built-in screen, an implanted throat microphone, and a fingertip operated typing interface, though most people eschew the latter and pict their messages silently. In more modern times, characters have invented a nanomachine-grown brain implant to monitor and correct health issues. It can synthesize drugs as needed, even make targeted "regrow" to selectively switch on stem cell mode in any part of the body. After all, how hard can it be to grow a new arm or leg?

So... in the Spy's view, virtual reality headsets are baby steps, on a per with the smartphones with which they will one day partner up and together morph into something like the PIEA. This tech has a long on-ramp, but it's nice to see Apple taking a bold step in the obviously inevitable direction.

Of course 2024 will also see the now obligatory iPhone, Watch, TV 4K, AirPods and Mac hardware upgrades, likely including new M4 chips (perhaps as late as early 2025) with a 16-25% speed bump over the M3, and more cores. Expect a path similar to Intel, with new chip iterations on an almost annual basis. 2023 was the first year since its introduction that there wasn't an iPad refresh, so expect that whole line to be updated this year.

The Spy also hopes for, rather than expects, updates to Swift. Last time he looked, it still smelled both dated and unfinished. (Mixed metaphor anyone?) Perhaps iCook needs to hire a new language designer and engage a rethink of what constitutes the next better thing in programming tools. Of course, all the OSs will be updated, including a second version of the visionOS that lives on the AVR headsets when they first arrive. Oh, and expect Siri and Safari to progressively acquire more AI features and begin to merge. Finally, anticipate an Apple breakthrough on modems so the company's goal of ditching dependance on Qualcomm silicon can be achieved by 2025. Will Apple engage in revenge cheaper licensing of its new modem technology to others?

Longer term?

Apple will either build its own satellite network or acquire one. It will either build its own electric vehicles or acquire a company that has already figured it out. How the inevitable shortage of electricity (they ain't enough now, let alone for all them vehicles and heat pumps) or the difficult environmental footprint of manufacturing and eventually recycling all those batteries, will be addressed is anyone's guess. With the exception of the several small companies building proof-of-concept fusion reactors, the power supply issue does not seem to be on anyone's tech radar at the moment.

Neither is swopping air pollution for chemical pollution from battery waste or the extremely high cost of replacing those batteries every few years, or building hundreds of thousands of recharging systems while recycling gas station properties as charging-cum-rest-stops (the latter necessary during lengthy waits for a recharge). Also, the Wet Coast excepted, up here in the Frozen North batteries do not do well in low temperatures. How will EVs be able to function in places where it can be below -20C for months on end? Why is it that the broader implications of adopting the "more better bigger tech" never get examined until after committing.

In that vain (pun intended) Canada's Liberal party is determined to end sales of gasoline powered cars by 2035 but has given no apparent thought to how to eliminate one gigantic, ubiquitous chunk of economic life and replace it with a different one, to whether an electric car economy is even feasible, to whether doing so would reduce pollution or increase it, or to whether there are other, possibly better alternatives. The Spy suspects something better will get invented well before 2035 that radically changes the entire picture. He at least expects, even demands, better, longer range, cheaper, more durable, different technology, and easier-on-the-environment batteries before being tempted to purchase.

One interesting alternative to Apple building either cars or a network from scratch that begins to seem feasible is that iCook might buy Elon Musk's assets out of bankruptcy court. Perhaps while he is at it he could snap up the sad remnants of a certain once-prosperous pillow manufacturer, either to re-invent the ubiquitous bedroom necessity as a newly necessary tech-driven appliance ("hey pillow, tell me how the last Canucks game went, then play me some go-to-sleep music only I can hear"), or just to acquire the empty manufacturing and warehouse space, perhaps to repurpose it as high-end heavily automated iCondos.

Politics, War, and Peace in 2024

will continue much as they have in 2023, with the first two expanding their reach, influence, and destructiveness, and the third remaining as elusive as always.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine will remain stalled and continue to cost it many times the casualties they inflict, their egregious war crimes will not be meaningfully addressed, Ukrainian countermeasures will have limited success, and Western appetites for helping will continue to fade. Will the West really allow a repeat of Hitler that exterminates a people that a narcissistic dictator and his henchmen label "vermin"? Oh, and who else uses the same dehumanizing language? Or will it do nothing until all of Europe falls?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, one of three election scenarios will play out in the disUnited States.

(a) a narrow win for Trump or Biden followed by riots in one or another of two disjoint sets of cities. The former would see the dismantling of much of the Federal Government, perhaps the suspension of a hostile Congress for rule by fiat, the imposition of martial law, the end of free elections, talk (at least) of subjecting Canada to the new Imperial rule, and the immediate emboldening and empowering of Xi and Putin in their territorial ambitions; and the latter would see a continued bumbling along on the current economic course (short term effective, long term bankruptcy), and either outcome would greatly exacerbate the divisions now tearing that country asunder;

(b) a narrow win for Haley over Harris (or some unknown Democrat) watched by Trump from an even narrower prison cell. This outcome would see fewer riots, better foreign relations, Trump being pardoned and freed to continue to peddle his malign influence until his increasing senility takes him off the board, but most likely the Democrats in control of both houses of Congress for some years to come, more support for Ukraine (though still a stalemate there barring some surprising development such as a new Russian revolution), and a deterrence to China's appetite for aggression for up to five more years; or

(c) some other pairing of candidates with similar outcomes to (b) (except for the pardon) regardless of which party wins the White House.

The Israeli government will not cease hostilities in Gaza until the strip is demilitarized. Why would it accept any peace treaty that did not include the release of all hostages held by Hamas, the surrender for trial by an International court of all their members, and the establishment of a Palestinian state internationally guaranteed to be neutral, with which it can co-exist peacefully. Meanwhile virulent antisemitism will continue to rise elsewhere, possibly to be supplemented or succeeded by anti-Christian prejudice, depending on the political landscape in the U.S. after November.

Modi will guarantee he wins big in India and use his increased majority to both increase the oppression of minorities and dissenters, and brush off the apparent evidence his state apparatus assassinates dissenters living in other countries.

Xi will hold off annexing Taiwan if someone other than Trump is elected-but only till the U.S. displays either some other weakness or distraction (such as North Korea provoking a conflict), and in any case no longer than for three to five years.

Orban will tighten his control over Hungary, Putin will open a second front in the North targeting the Baltics and/or Poland on yet another phony pretext, plus continue to build up his northern fleet with a view to annexing the entire Arctic region as a Russian pond, parts of Africa and South America will continue to suffer under tinpot dictatorships (some beholden to Putin or Xi), the Taliban will oppress Afghan women even more, and Canada will bumble along with inadequate policing, military, and healthcare, increasing irrelevance on the world scene, and little prospect for substantive positive change till the leading "throw-the-bums-out" party wins the next election (fate of all lost and stale governments, but sadly, only in democracies).

Speaking of medical issues, given (still) declining birth rates, most governments will gradually find themselves unable to afford universal health care. (Some do not provide it now.) The Spy notes with alarm the increasing prevalence of assisted suicide (euphemistically called MAID) and observes that anything a government can decide to permit, it can later determine to mandate. "No longer of use to the state…off with you."

In the new year, things that

- the Spy wishes he could avoid but cannot: VBA--still the poster-boy for the worst programming language ever devised;

- must be avoided alliances with or voting for self-serving or ambitious politicians or church "leaders", or people who recruit for extremist causes of any stripe or "wing" (in quotes because at the extremes "left" = "right" for all practical purposes);

- ought to be avoided: weight gain, investing in cryptocurrency or AI stocks, Microsoft Windows, Teams, Outlook, and Word, wasting time playing computer games, the making of New Year's resolutions, and self-referential comments;

cannot be avoided:social responsibility, including for ameliorating climate change, eliminating real prejudice without imaging it where it is not, calling out quackery, and rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. (We'll all be required to do the latter eventually, so why not start now?)

Note: An absolute wall of separation between Church and state is impossible. The state has the right to set standards for work and building safety, employment, honest accounting, and public health (including vaccines, masking, and behaviour during a pandemic). The Church meanwhile has an exclusive and absolute mandate to make disciples which no secular authority can impede even legally, but it has no mandate or right to interfere in the state's business, preach anti-government sermons, or allow political recruiting on its premises (if it has any of the latter). If you are convinced otherwise, try to make a list of the times Jesus dissed one of the most oppressive governments of all time, carried a picket sign, noisily refused to respect the law of the land, or advocated civil disobedience. Ah, yes. Exactly. WWJD.

Quite enough food for thought

and possibly indigestion, during an unseasonably warm and green January. Have as much a happy, peaceful, and prosperous 2024 as possible.

--The Northern Spy

Opinions expressed here are entirely the author's own, and no endorsement is implied by any community or organization to which he may be attached. Rick Sutcliffe, (a.k.a. The Northern Spy) is professor of Computing Science and Mathematics and Assistant Dean of Science at Canada's Trinity Western University. He completed his fifty-third year as a high school and university teacher in 2023. He has been involved as a member of or consultant with the boards of several organizations, and participated in developing industry standards at the national and international level. He was co-author of the now defunct Modula-2 programming language R10 dialect project. He is a long time technology author and has written two textbooks and ten alternate history SF novels, one named best ePublished SF novel for 2003. His various columns have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers (dead tree and online formats) since the early 1980s, and he's been a regular participant and speaker at churches, schools, and academic meetings and conferences. He and his wife Joyce celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in 2019 and lived in the Langley/Aldergrove/Bradner area of B.C. from 1969 to 2021, where he latterly continues alone, depending heavily on family and friends to manage.

URL s for Rick Sutcliffe's Arjay Enterprises:

The Northern Spy Home Page: https://www.TheNorthernSpy.com

opundo : https://opundo.com

Sheaves Christian Resources : https://sheaves.org

WebNameHost : https://www.WebNameHost.net

WebNameSource : https://www.WebNameSource.net

nameman : https://nameman.net

General URLs for Rick Sutcliffe's Books:

Author Site: https://www.arjay.ca

TechEthics Site (Fourth edition of text; the fifth is in preparation) : httpss://www.arjaybooks.com/EthTech/index.htm

Publisher's Site: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Richard-Sutcliffe.html