They could gain a shedload of market share by remaining cheap while pricing in the whole rest of the industry rockets up?
Especially after just releasing the Neo, their cheapest laptop ever. They could be taking chunks out of the PC market right now if they werent so greedy.
Because it could be strategically good to increase their market share and loyalty when everyone else is increasing their prices, for instance? But no, the "fiduciary duty" thing trumps everything, I guess.
Apple is free to make either choice (or anywhere on the spectrum) without violating any duty they have to shareholders.
“We chose to invest in future market share, believing that was in the best interest of the company” is a perfectly valid choice for the company leaders and board to make.
We are only talking about opinion here. Obviously Apple shareholders have their own and thats what they use to direct the company, thats fine. My opinion would be more along the lines of 'Lets sacrifice 1% of profit this year to gain huge chunks of market share by undercutting literally everybody else in the industry for the first time in our history'.
I had the same opinion when they released the neo. In 3-4 years time there are going to be absolutely loads of them looking shabby and tired and running very slowly. Apple has been so careful over the past 3 decades to avoid that image, I'm surprised they are happy to go down that road now.