Apple has a habit of sending technologies off into the sunset—see CDs, Firewire, Adobe Flash, and that’s just for starters.
Running a whole country down, however, is a first.
According to Alexander Stubb, prime minister of Finland, many of the country’s economic woes stem from Apple’s iPhone—the devices that brought about the downfall of Nokia, the country’s former cell-phone champion, now a much-diminished part of Microsoft.
He also, bizarrely, pinned the decline of Finland’s paper industry on Apple’s iPad.
“A little bit paradoxically I guess one could say that the iPhone killed Nokia, and the iPad killed the Finnish paper industry,” he told CNBC on Monday.
See also: Nokia Unveils Three New Lumia Smartphones At Microsoft Build 2014
Finland’s sovereign debt rating on Standard & Poor slid from AAA to AA+ on Friday. But Apple isn’t solely to blame for that downgrade. Numerous factors went into its lowered economic prospects, including an aging population, lackluster business development and other matters. Stubb acknowledges that broader reforms are necessary, while remaining optimistic about making “a comeback.”
See also: Nokia X Gets Axed By Microsoft
As for Nokia, the company’s phone business now operates under the umbrella of Microsoft, which lopped off as many as 12,500 jobs earlier this year. It still makes good phones—the Nokia Lumia 930, is regarded as one of the best on the market—but Windows Phone remains way behind Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android in popularity.
Lead photo by Henkka
