[logfromblammo]

They pay for placement with gratis or discounted hardware, not with dimes.

A long, long time ago, I did data entry for a local newspaper of campaign contributions records. At that time, I learned what an "in-kind" contribution was. This was when someone would, for instance, provide food for a campaign event. The candidate who benefited was required to report the dollar amount of that food as an in-kind contribution.

Payment in kind is another term for barter. The reporting requirement is so that public political campaigns could not hide sources of support by failing to report barter-like transactions.

And you shouldn't mislead people by saying Apple does not pay for product placement. It does pay. It pays via barter, rather than with cash, but it pays.