If you want to buy some cheap metalworking equipment, buying from a small metalworking company on the cusp of bankruptcy can get you a great price.
But if you want to buy a business that makes a lot of money, you'll be hard pressed to find one if you only look at small companies on the cusp of bankruptcy.
What Apple does is buy companies with fantastic technology, but a very limited ability to bring that to the market as a compelling product on their own.
Siri had limited value as a standalone app interfacing only to public APIs and services, but huge value as a deeply integrated platform interface with links into all the platform services. The original company could never realise that sort of enhanced value, so as a standalone player it's value was limited and Apple could buy it (relatively) cheap.
PA Semi as a small independent chip designer could eke out a decent living doing small bespoke designs for companies here or there. That has value, but it's limited. However as the designers of the undisputed heavyweight champion mobile CPUs, in the most successful consumer product of all time, providing significant product differentiating performance and features, they have enormous value but _only_ if Apple buys them.
User ksec gave a great list of successful Apple acquisitions for which their core products still exist and are thriving and the above pattern applies just as well to all of them. That's the primary model for Apple. I'm sure there are cases where they buy teams for talent, but it's usually talent in a specific area Apple can directly leverage somewhere in their products.
EDIT: I would into be at all surprised if Apple went into these negotiations saying "We love your technology, it;s great. Here's an offer. BTW here's the brochure of another similar company with almost as good technology we could buy instead, integrate into our products and kill you with.".
> *What Apple does is buy companies with fantastic technology, but a very limited ability to bring that to the market as a compelling product on their own.
Not always, Beats headphones was them buying a company producing complimentary products, most of the value was in the brand, marketing and the distinct visual design of the products. There's nothing special about the technology and the company was very effective in bringing their product to market.
This story about Drew Houston meeting Steve Jobs for acquisition talks pretty much confirms the supposition in your edit.
“'You either got Chill Steve or Very Mean Steve': Dropbox founder remembers being summoned to Apple by Steve Jobs — then told his startup would be killed”
If you‘re Apple and only want to buy businesses that make „a lot of money“, you‘re pretty limited. Most oh so successful and profitable companies are only making nickel and dime in regards to Apple. Why pay top dollars for that?
I don't think anyone is arguing against that. I think it's mostly that "the lowest price [they] could" is typically a pretty aggressive offer. Apple is really great at finding companies that have great proof-of-concept products with no way to polish them or scale them and then using their resources to make the "Apple-y" version of that product that's integrated into everything. They're rarely the only company looking at these potential acquisitions and they're more concerned with locking them down than they are at negotiating and potentially losing out.
Many people criticized Facebook for its overpriced acquisitions over the years at the time, but what’s app and instagram have payed off huge for them. Cheaper acquisitions might have not planned out so well. The price can be worth it
Facebook bought a user base with the WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions. I don't think they cared very much about the technology or the skill set of either WhatsApp or Instagram.
What makes marketplaces work is the "saddle" shape of transactions.
Alice wishes to buy a house. She narrows her choice down to three candidates, and is looking to pay the lowest possible price for one of the three.
Bob has a house for sale. After showing it for a week, his agent puts it up for offers, and he is looking to accept the highest possible price.
If Bob's highest possible price is also Alice's lows possible price, they both win.
So it is very possible for one party to sell for the highest possible price, while the other party is buying for the lowest possible price, even if both have the same information about the market.
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So yes, Apple could have paid the lowest possible price while simultaneously--and you would be correct--they sold for the highest possible price.
