I like a lot of things about Apple, and I've bought a lot of their products and often recommended them to friends (still do, only recently bought my parents an iPad).
I can honestly say that their profits have never been something I've been impressed by, and indeed, for most of that time they didn't have impressive profits, so if I was impressed by profits I would have bought and recommended Windows PCs instead.
Surely it's equal parts of both: Apple try to make the best products (in order to) make the most money (in order to) make the best products (in order to) make the most money (in order to) make the best products (in order to) etc etc...
In the sandpit where Apple plays, you can't have one without the other. A beautiful symbiosis of business and craft.
It would be nice if that were true, but actually network effects and path dependency mean that the best products will rarely "win" in IT markets where those factors dominate (see arguments about who has the bigger app store, or developer base, or patent portfolio, or pile of money).
I hope people don't lose their sense of surprise that Apple is "winning" with nice products or start to think it's inevitable, history tells us otherwise.
I guess the beef is that the metric keeps changing. Before Android took over the market crown it was all about unit sales and marketshare percentage that everyone touted. Once Android took over, the metric changed.
For example, Windows Server makes billions per quarter and probably is the Server OS that makes the most money for it's maker. But you won't find that argument on HN to say that Windows Server dominates the server OS market. In fact some believe that Windows has no viable presence in servers.
Before Android took over the market crown, RIM held the market crown.
Sure MS might not have a viable presence in servers, but if they are making more money doing it than anyone else... by definition, they are winning. They aren't going to pack-up a billion-dollar-per-quarter sector of their company because they don't have the market share numbers they'd like. If anything, having such a successful business with such a small market share represents potential growth.
I can honestly say that their profits have never been something I've been impressed by, and indeed, for most of that time they didn't have impressive profits, so if I was impressed by profits I would have bought and recommended Windows PCs instead.