I don't own any Apple products (at least not nowadays), but they are really good at recognizing what upcoming tech has potential, buying it and then packaging it in a way that makes it appealing to consumers. They may not have invented many of the things they sell, but they definitely helped to popularize a ton of things that we take for granted now.
Smartphones are a good example. They existed before the iPhone (I remember the days of ye olden Palm Treo), but they weren't something the average person really cared about or wanted until the iPhone came around. Now, I won't go so far as to say that we wouldn't have smartphones like we do now without the iPhone as I think largely that it was just about the right time that smart phones were really becoming technically feasible, but Apple still deserves credit for being the ones who were there first with the pieces put together into a product that finally made people want one. Though I also remember the strange delusion they seemed to have had with the original iPhone pre-App Store that people would be OK with just HTML "apps", but that's a different tale.
which can basically be described as "a phone as a box with a touchscreen and no keyboard"
all they "make" is the box. they don't own the rights to any of the parts inside it (although they do have exclusive distribution rights for the versions of the components they put in the box)
OK they write their own firmware for those boxes. but none of that is actually that good. anyone using their latest kit knows their phones don't even work that good as a phone.
apple as a company won't survive past the last of Steve jobs patents expiring. which is no later than 2028.
You just have no idea what you're talking about.
I think you are referring to samsung or other company building screens or other parts for apple, you have to realize that apple is the one who develops specs and ideas for these things to be built and is only using Samsung and LG for their manufacturing resources because they are leaders in actual manufacturing.
It's like praising a construction workers for building a bridge that was designed by a extremely talented engineer, all the praise for designing a functional bridge should go to the engineer who designed it. It's easy to follow instructions, it's incredibly hard to come up with something that was never done before and create specs for a construction worker (samsung factory) to actually build it.
praising apple for making good phones is like praising Franklin D. Roosevelt for building a dam.
if it is overturned before that they won't last that long.
downsizing is never pretty.
with awesome products like the never done before iWatch their future looks bright.
on the other hand. the bears made good money shorting them this year. and their gains don't look likely to reverse any time soon.
ridiculous though that a company that basically does nothing but buy things from other companies and puts them in a shiny box should be allowed to win and lose cases like this IMHO.
annoying we have to wait for 2021 for all the obvious patents granted during the dot com bubble to expire.