No, it is the vast amount of risk they are willing to take. Microsoft/alphabet have vast amounts of money too, but no appetite for risk.
Apple is willing to dump tens of billions and years into R&D for physical products, fail, and then try again. Microsoft half asses it, and then pulls back instead of plowing through (see them shutting down Microsoft retail stores and windows phone). But they have that Excel and Windows B2B gravy train they can ride for the foreseeable future.
Microsoft is actually doing great right now, but the thing they're doing great at is Azure and cloud services like 365, plus some very lucky AI investments.
Shutting down their bad products was a good move, even if they should've made good products in the first place.
AirPods/pro/max? They've taken major presence a space owned by Sony, Samsung and Bose.
Apple Watch Ultra?
Though it's thin and flat, The iPhone X was a huge leap in specs, contrary to the entire market analyst sentiment that people wanted cheaper phones. Apple made a big bet that people would want the opposite: more expensive phones, and they were right.
M series of chips is an arm processor, licensed by ARM and fabricated by TSMC.
On top of that it is a processor. Did apple R&D invent the processor? No, they licensed an existing design, tweaked it, and paid a factory to make it for them.
Airpods are just bluetooth headphones. Did Apple R&D invent bluetooth, or even bluetooth headphones?
Apple watch was not even the first smart watch to market. They did not invent the watch, and they did not invent the smart watch.
You must be pretty blinkard to think that Apple invented all these things instead of licensing existing patents and repackaging them, which is what they do best.
Who is talking about patents? I was talking about business risk. Since when does invention ever imply economic gain? It's business 101, invention rarely leads to business payoffs unless there is innovation in the market, i.e. it is manufactured, packaged, sold, distributed to the demands of the day. Who invented the PC? Kenbak corp & John Blankenbaker, arguably - they didn't last. Motorola invented the mobile phone. Invention is important but is no indication of long term business success.
On the M series of chips, "Tweaked it" is a heavy lift. You are vastly underplaying the amount of Apple's design work that went into the M series of chips. It's led to massive performance gains against the competition.
Airpods are "just" bluetooth headphones, but happen to be the ones that have the most market share by far. It's about design and quality.
The Apple Watch also is the most widely adopted smart watch, by far. Because of how it was designed and manufactured.
The facts are that Apple has taken major risks repeatedly with their design and product decisions, and reaps the rewards with higher margins and market share than the competition. This isn't blinkard, this is just reality.
I have no interest in convincing anyone else, maybe they are only risky according to me.
But I do know they seem to result in net incomes that others would seemingly find envious, and yet the others are not able to replicate, so the empirical evidence doesn’t make it seem so easy.
No, it is the vast amount of risk they are willing to take. Microsoft/alphabet have vast amounts of money too, but no appetite for risk.
Apple is willing to dump tens of billions and years into R&D for physical products, fail, and then try again. Microsoft half asses it, and then pulls back instead of plowing through (see them shutting down Microsoft retail stores and windows phone). But they have that Excel and Windows B2B gravy train they can ride for the foreseeable future.