- Non-trival amount of resources go into hardware R&D and OSX development
- Desktop and laptop computer market is increasingly shrinking
- Revenue growth is flat
It's not as simple as "well we make $x for every iOS developer, $x/2 for every OSX developer and that's going to be $x/3 in 5 years" but that's the general gist of it. Consumers are not buying computers and Apple has never been a major business player.
1. A very large portion of their OS X development is directly applicable to what goes into iOS. And it's becoming more so. The same for their hardware R&D and what ends up being usable in their mobile products.
2. The consumer desktop and laptop market has been shrinking, because consumers have switched to mobile. Which is most of Apple's income.
3. Growth may be flat, but the margins are good, which exactly what BH is looking for.
Finally, and most obviously, Apple needs computers in order to make software for mobile. They own pretty much the whole stack and are able to make a hefty profit by selling their tools (hardware and software), that they would need anyways, to the rest of the world. This is classic vertical integration and it makes alot of sense business-wise.
So those points do not answer the question, which makes your answer seem like a deflection.
Furthermore Apple's revenue growth may be flat, but their competitors are in actual decline.
Consumers are increasingly buying apple computers instead of any other, and this is increasingly true in enterprises as well as consumer spaces.
The percentage of Apple's business that is represented by PCs will obviously decrease as they add other business lines. What does that have to do with anything?
- Non-trival amount of resources go into hardware R&D and OSX development
- Desktop and laptop computer market is increasingly shrinking
- Revenue growth is flat
It's not as simple as "well we make $x for every iOS developer, $x/2 for every OSX developer and that's going to be $x/3 in 5 years" but that's the general gist of it. Consumers are not buying computers and Apple has never been a major business player.