Igreed by Apple too tart for this palate

So Apple is now a $1 trillion company. At what cost to the rest of us?

There’s a large sticker across my Apple laptop that screams “€13bn tax dodge”. It’s a rather childish attempt to remind myself of how easily I compromise on principles. Most people who notice it think it refers to the Guptas. It does in fact refer to Apple. And it helps to remind me of the grim fact that the single largest influence on the structure of my daily life is the late Steve Jobs. It is a grim fact because I really disliked Jobs and I detest the company he created. Yet the only computers I have are idiot-proof Apple ones, including an ipad mini, and an iphone.

Jobs was the stereotypical obnoxious individual who pushes the boundaries of whatever field he occupies.

It is in large part thanks to him that we are all now able to interact with the power of computers, a power that until the early 1990s lay mainly in the hands of a few nerdy specialists.

And though he didn’t invent the mobile phone, his version of it became the must-have accessory of 21st-century living.

It was not just about communication; the smartphone became a portal into a new way of life. And it opened up opportunities for a raft of new hitech industries. Without smartphones how big would Tencent, Amazon,

Uber and Facebook have become?

Of course without Tim Bernerslee’s role in developing the internet, would there be much point in having a smartphone or Apple laptop? And without the pioneering work of Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, would Bernerslee have been able to make his huge contribution to the world wide web?

If you wanted to take a longer-term perspective you might even say that without the Cold War we might still be decades away from the internet and the better part of a century away from the mobile phone.

Which brings me back to the obnoxious Jobs. I’m still undecided on whether the bells and whistles he’s added to Berners-lee, Cerf and

Kahn’s work have improved the quality of my life.

As quickly as I think “definitely”,

I’m inclined to suspect “maybe not”. I can work from home. I can work when I’m on holiday. I can work when I’m out with friends. I’m just not sure whether that’s progress.

My major issue with Jobs is his determination — enthusiastically adopted by Tim Cook — to upend the flow of development. Apple has not only captured the bulk of the enormous profit due to previous generations of researchers, but it has refused to hand anything but a sliver of it to governments.

The €13bn is the tax it owed Ireland from profits made across the globe. In the short-term-fixated world of shareholder capitalism, this is a large part of Apple’s attraction. It has helped to boost its market capitalisation to an eye-popping $1 trillion.

But the fact is, Apple would not exist had it not been for all the largely government-funded research undertaken long before Jobs set up in his parents’ garage.

Now, thanks to Apple and its ilk, governments have been starved of the resources needed for substantial research, even for decent education. Today innovation is about how best to deliver pizzas and frocks. Real progress has been stunted.

Thanks to Apple and its ilk, governments have been starved of the resources needed for substantial research