>You can bet Apple is spending more on R&D than almost anyone else, so there is likely no wiggle room at all for anyone to compete on innovation, unless they aim for some niche market.
Actually, Apple spends comparatively less on R&D than any of its competitors. It's increased recently, but for many years - especially in the late Jobs years - people were scratching their heads at how comparatively little they spent on it.
Apple does spend comparatively little on R&D (perhaps part of that is because they don't produce 400 different models of every darn device), but their margins on iPhones are still nowhere near 70%.
I was just speaking specifically the notion that Apple's margins as a company are eaten up by R&D spend which we agree they're clearly not. (The fact that they're doing multi-billion dollar stock buybacks and issuing increasing dividends show they have more money than they know what to do with).
Although since you brought it up, I did a quick search and found that the margins on the iPhone as an individual product (vs. the company's overall margin) are speculated to be near 70% and that figure isn't just pulled out of thin air:
Actually, Apple spends comparatively less on R&D than any of its competitors. It's increased recently, but for many years - especially in the late Jobs years - people were scratching their heads at how comparatively little they spent on it.
http://www.cnet.com/news/apples-r-d-up-32-percent-in-2013-st...