Hot water- that's probably the perfect way to describe Apple's current situation. Mediocre stock market performance, slower sales, bribery scandal, Battery-gate, Watergate – the company has been knee-deep in legal and financial troubles this year.

Let's start with the one that might have impacted most users: The Battery-gate. It all started in 2017 when users of iPhone, Apple's most sold product, experiencing significant slowdowns in the older devices once Apple rolled out a newer update of their operating systems. When confronted, Apple agreed to say that it was a deliberate attempt to make sure that older iPhones such as iPhone 6S did not unexpectedly shutdown from excessive processor performance. iPhone users, however, were not pleased with Apple's explanation. As a hail marry to save face, Apple issued a public apology and offered discounts on battery replacement for ageing devices. Despite all these, the matter went to court and Apple had to pay half a billion dollars in fine. From this amount, every affected iPhone user got $25 in refunds. The matter did not end there- Apple was bombarded with lawsuits in nearly 3 dozen states in the US and also in Europe for such deceptive practices. All of those have been lost by Apple and industry analysts predict more are to come on its way.  

The most recent lawsuit that Apple lost in European courts are due to its water-resistance claims. Apple in its marketing materials claimed that iPhone 8 through iPhone 11 can survive four metres deep for up to 30 minutes. But independent tests simulating real-life scenario debunked those claims of Apple. To make things even worse, Apple does not provide warranty coverage due to water coverage on those devices. For such fabricated claims, Apple was fined $ 12 Million.  

Now let's look at the bribery charges: Apple's head of global security Thomas Moyer was charged for bribing in the form of ($75,000 worth of) iPads to the Santa Clara Sheriff's county for obtaining conceal carry permit of firearms. Apple's internal investigation however did not Moyer guilty of anything. After conducting an investigation for nearly two years, the District-Attorney filed charges against two police officers and Apple's Moyer.

 To top all these, Apple is seeing a sluggish sales performance of its newest iPhone 12. May touted that this slow in sales performance is due to Apple's newest phone not offering anything ground-breaking.  In social media, the phone has already been ridiculed for the uncanny similarity between the six-year older iPhone's design and not packing any charger or even cables. In the Chinese market, the phone's sales performance was even lower than Apple's own conservative projections.

 These all probably are the reason why in early November, when $430 Billion of Apple market cap was whipped out. The good news for Apple is that some of it have been recovered by now. With the new M1 Silicon Processor-based Apple's MacBook products showing promising performance, Wall Street analysts believe that in 2021, Apple is going to bounce back and reinstate itself in the market as the reigning king.