Apple will now be treated like a bank

A friend of mine , 15 years ago (ios 3), already predicted that the only reason why apple would stash that amount of cash was if they planned on turning into a bank.

Hats off to you, my friend !

I said the same thing, and I'm going to do one more prediction: the banking business will become more and more profitable with very low risk to the point it will take more and more space in Apple's culture.

Also, regulations and the hiring market mean they will have to hire more and more profiles than you typically find in finance. With Jobs dead and an aging Cook that can't willpower himself into everything anymore, nothing will cancel this effect.

Eventually, this will lower Apple taste for innovation and the product quality will go down until they become another average player cashing in on the inertia of its past success.

They will be super profitable, but nobody will look up to them anymore.

The financial sector is so absurdly profitable that it makes sense for big companies with a lot of cash to just invest in financial markets rather than actually do things (esp. considering taxpayers will bail you out on tail events, so don't you care about risk!). Famously GM in 2008 had virtually become a financial services company which made cars on the side.

Just another sign that all is not well with the state of things.