[jmduke]

Ben means that the end goal of OS X, iOS, and iCloud are to sell more hardware, not to be individually thriving SKUs (as evidenced by the declining price of any non-hardware offering by Apple over the past decade). Every (or, at least almost every) decision made at Apple is made with the goal of improving the experience of owning Apple hardware, which is their main profit center.

This is a useful way to understand Apple, but not companies in general. Movie theaters make the majority of their profit off of concessions, but they are not popcorn companies.