Why would services put them at odds with an open platform? (I’m pretty sure they use that open platform for many of their services)

Making it harder not to use their services permits them to profit thereby (e.g. via the Apple tax).

Why would an open platform running on their hardware impact service usage at all? Let’s be clear what an open platform on ARM Mac is: people (such as a lot of folks here) who already prefer an open platform and want M-series performance, not a significant proportion of the macOS user base developing a preference for Linux.

And that is revenue. Guess margins is the main question.

That’s pretty easy to ballpark. Everything Apple does targets a whole package 25-30% margin. If the services aren’t generating that margin, the hardware is making it up. Last I heard the iPhone is on that margin target, as are all or nearly all macs. So it’s pretty reasonable to assume the services are pretty close in line.

Services actually hover in the 60% gross margin, vs 30% for hardware. But they sell so much hardware that the overall profits are still 80% from that.

Source: https://sec.report/Document/0000320193-19-000119/

> whole package margin

> If the services aren’t generating that margin, the hardware is making it up.

I really don't like that way of looking at profits.

Going by that standard, if you sell a thousand dollar device with $260 in margin and no software, everything is great.

But then if you add on $600 in software to increase your margin to $330, that's bad somehow?

Huh? I wasn’t making a value judgment at all, just observing Apple’s historical behavior. That is how they look at profit. And they move all sorts of revenue around to make certain price points more appealing. Mac mini gets cheaper at entry level, macOS is free. To the extent those are lower margin, they make it up in services or other hardware lines.

Huh? I wasn't judging you at all, just insulting Apple's historical behavior, how they look at profit.