[kolbe]

If they could reasonably put that investment to use, that would be a fine thing to do. But Apple doesn't really have the same philosophy as Larry/Sergey and Zuckerberg do towards throwing money at any idea that has the slightest bit of potential. They want to see a legitimate and probable chance of success in their investments in addition to a synergy with Apple would enhance the investment or Apple itself. It just so happens that there aren't really hundreds of billions of dollars worth of such investments out there. So, instead, Apple tries to return that money to its investors. Unfortunately for that plan, if Apple were to give that money back to investors, it would incur a massive repatriation tax, so it instead sits overseas, "waiting" for a tax holiday.