It's not that Apple is a freeloader, it's that those companies were terrible at allocating capital. Apple does R&D on technology, its just done with the goal of being utilized in a product that is viable enough to have real business value. It's not R&D for R&D's sake, which was the example companies' mistake. That R&D wasn't being done out of charity for the public good, that was shareholder capital being risked for the prospect of reaping returns from it.