The fact that Apple has tons of cash and could pay off patent trolls does not mean they have to or that it would be a good thing. In fact, exactly because they have tons of cash the moral thing to do for them is to fight the trolls tooth and nail - because they can afford to - so that trolls would be as weak and timid as possible when they approach those who doesn't have Apple's pile of cash, and so they would have ample anti-troll precedents.

Most of thing patent trolls claim to be their "intellectual property" is a banal rent extraction by managing to sneak a patent claim on either idea long accepted in industry or some tweak of an existing idea which when, when somebody else arrives to it completely independently, becomes their big payout. Like trolls claiming they invented clicking on links, online ads, peer-to-peer networking, shopping carts, and everything else in the world. They do not serve any useful function, they do not produce anything needed by anybody, they are just parasites and rent-seekers abusing the inefficiency of the law to their private benefit.

The sooner they would be completely destroyed and their craft becomes as respected as spammers and 419 scammers, the better.