>Lets say (patent issues not withstanding), you created an exact clone of the iPad and iOS and sold it at the same price but without the 30% 'apple tax' on purc

>Lets say (patent issues not withstanding), you created an exact clone of the iPad and iOS and sold it at the same price but without the 30% 'apple tax' on purchases. What "Apple tax"? Haven't you noticed that competitors have struggled to offer the same prices for their tablets for example? The iPad/iPhone is one of the cheapest products on their market segment. Just consider that when everybody expected the iPad to be like $999 or $799 on introduction, it came out at $499 -- and the mostly useless copies (now forgotten) that appeared of it, where in the range of $700. Apple has their margin's with huge economies of scale and huge massive pre-orders of RAM, solid state storage and screen panels.