So, you concede grandparent's point that Apple's revenue from (smartphone plus tablet) hardware sales is and always has been at least 10 and probably 20 times as much as revenue from the (smartphone and tablet) App Store, but you won't retract your statement that Apple has "an incentive for [their hardware] to last" a long time "as the business model is predicated on the AppStore ultimately"?
Can you point to any statement by a leader at or spokesperson for Apple that suggests that that is Apple's long-term plan?
Apple's cost for manufacturing and delivering to a customer a new iPad or iPhone (and providing post-sale support and warranty service) is only 60 or 70% of the selling price of that iPad or iPhone -- the rest is pure profit for Apple (provided they would have been profitable without that one additional sale -- provided, that is, that revenue is enough to cover the "fixed" costs such as design and engineering). If their "marginal" cost were 99% of the selling price, then it might be different, but the way it is now, surely the more iPads and iPhones Apple sells, the more profit they make. And since that is the case, in what sense does Apple have an "incentive" to make it so that any customer replaces his iPad or iPhone less often?
Can you point to any statement by a leader at or spokesperson for Apple that suggests that that is Apple's long-term plan?
Apple's cost for manufacturing and delivering to a customer a new iPad or iPhone (and providing post-sale support and warranty service) is only 60 or 70% of the selling price of that iPad or iPhone -- the rest is pure profit for Apple (provided they would have been profitable without that one additional sale -- provided, that is, that revenue is enough to cover the "fixed" costs such as design and engineering). If their "marginal" cost were 99% of the selling price, then it might be different, but the way it is now, surely the more iPads and iPhones Apple sells, the more profit they make. And since that is the case, in what sense does Apple have an "incentive" to make it so that any customer replaces his iPad or iPhone less often?