If finding "the next iPhone" just required spending large enough sums of money, then Microsoft would have beat them to the punch before the iPhone came out.

In all of history there have only been a few iPhone class disruptors. They are rare, and they come based more on timing and the presence of enabling technologies than any particular company simply investing billions in R&D.

yeah, these tech giants are constantly hiring tons of people and snapping up every interesting startup that rolls along in a desperate bid to turn money into more profitable products

Although I do wish Apple would buy some AAA game studios and make some AAA-quality games for their platforms..

The game market is extremely small compared to other markets.

Sony just announced their quarterly numbers. The PS4 just crossed the 100 million unit threshold over its entire lifetime. Apple sells that many phones in two quarters.

Giving the companies profits to the people who own the company is not "financial engineering". Apple has decided it cannot effectively use that money for R&D, so it isn't

Stock buybacks may be a way to give profits to the people who own the company, but they are also 100% financial engineering considering it has a direct impact on stock price and earnings per share.

Stock buybacks were illegal until 1982, being considered a form of stock manipulation. Even though it's legal now, it's still one of the best forms of stock manipulation.

> it has a direct impact on stock price

A company buying its own stock at market price is a wash. The reduction in the value of the company and the increase in the value of each remaining share balance out.

Those moonshots are in the budget and excess cash doesn’t have anything to do with a lack of moonshots.

Even in 2007 when the iPhone was introduced, Jobs said he wanted Apple to have 1% of the phone market and sell $10 million. That means the phone market was already at 1 billion per year. Now it’s at 4+ billion per year. Getting in the phone market was obvious even back then.

Almost by definition, there won’t be a larger market than one that already has 80%* market penetration among adults worldwide.