[andyman1080]

Surprised to see so many responses without a fact check on this: "the biggest indicator of the shift in their priorities is that they took 100 billion dollars in cash and used it for stock buybacks and dividends."

The dividend and stock repurchase will be more than paid for out of operating cash flow. In other words, even with them the cash pile will increase.

Look at some of the analysis that Horace Dediu is doing to observe that Apple is actually investing a tremendous amount of capital ($7B this year) in as yet unknown equipment, maybe real estate. (http://www.asymco.com/2012/05/22/up-to-eleven/) That's not including the billions they spend on R&D. If that's not reinvesting profit in a big picture way, I don't know what is.