Intellectual Ventures is also a patent troll. It's just higher profile and has people involved that had some level of existing respectability at some point in the past.
When you're at Apple's scale, license costs for things like these are a rounding error compared to the cost of a legal defense, even if you win. It's cheaper to pay them off.
> license costs for things like these are a rounding error
Paying a troll is like dumping toxic waste on your water supply. It's, at minimum, inconsiderate. By doing that, they further enabled this troll to go after everybody else.
Considering that Apple has already licensed the patent before being sued, why do you call them a patent troll. How as Apple to know that they were going to go after other developers?
It could have, for all you know, been a legitimate patent licensing issue - unless you think anyone claiming infringement on any software patent is a patent troll - which is a stance I don't really disagree with, but that's a separate argument, I guess.