[umsm]

Their costs are controlled at the scale at which they operate at.

A competitor may be able to offer something similar, but without the scale, their prices will likely be equal to or greater than apple's.

[MBCook]

That's been kicking people for years. Only Apple could make the iPod Mini because they bought the entire production of the little CF sized hard-drives. A few years ago Apple bought a huge chunk of the available Flash production capacity.

Then you get the crazy things where Apple can afford to make special machines to blend the glass and aluminum on their devices or laser-cut holes in the laptops because they're operating at a scale where they can make that work out. No upstart brand could EVER do that.