I don't have any solid numbers on Apple's margins, but I'm not sure I agree with your break-even assessment. taptaptap recently announced that they clear $1M/m

I don't have any solid numbers on Apple's margins, but I'm not sure I agree with your break-even assessment. taptaptap recently announced that they clear $1M/month via AppStore sales (and they don't currently have any apps on the 100 Top Grossing list). From a per-customer perspective, I don't think Apple spends their $450,000 take supporting taptaptap. This will pan out differently with less profitable customers, but I imagine that the lower-end customers are effectively subsidized by the giants like EA (13/TG100), Gameloft (5/TG100), et al. I'd absolutely love to see Apple's fixed and variable costs for developers at different sales levels, but I'm not holding my breath.