Apple sold 156 million iOS devices in 2011 alone. Multiply that by the $20 difference and you get 3 billion dollars. I have to assume that R&D of the power adapter cost less than that.
But is it an accurate analysis when considering the costs of R&D?
As an example, Dropbox may invest $X in their product so that they could deliver $Y, but Box.net is more expensive... So if they make more money they must be exploiting us, right? Of course not... we hope :)
In this case it seems clear, Apple appears to have some unique R&D in this component... which may justify a (albeitly unknown) premium for the product.
Is the price right? I'm not sure. But they certainly seem to have an interesting edge with the tech.
That said (and the real point of my thought), I do wonder why we in the tech world place such a difference in R&D between HW and SW. If a HW company finds a niche, and does interesting tech, we still seem to devalue it compared to SW Dev (yes there are exceptions, but as a rule we seem to throw HW under the bus).
What's the difference? Why are these dichotomies acceptable in the software world but not the hardware world?
If Apple delivers a product that (apparently - without considering or understanding the actual R&D cost) costs less than competitors it's a problem... But in the SW world we barely bat an eye.
Is R&D and creativity in HW design is a valid cost?
Anyway, I'm not harping on your comment (which is valid in it's own right); I'm just curious and interested in the apparent difference in SW and HW innovations...
Well, they include these adaptors with iPhones and iPads. Only iPod touch users have to buy them, or those iPhone/iPad users who broke theirs! I had iPod touches for 2.5 years and never needed to charge them using an AC power adaptor, and now that I have and iPad & an iPhone, I still rarely use them. So your calculation of a $3B margin is off by (almost) two orders of magnitude.
