&gt; Just what is wrong with say, spending some of that money to fund research into say, quantum computing or medicine? Does every damn thing have to be applicable to the next iPhone?<p>Things probably need a business plan backing them, which involves making money. Usually for social advancement we lobby the government to fund said research for our betterment.  The private industry tends to fund research for its own betterment.<p>Also phrased another way, I imagine AAPL shareholders would be upset if Apple spent those profits on research into medicine, unless Apple was trying to build a product to sell said Medicine.<p>I think Society in general can benefit but it can be harder to see and the motives may often appear &quot;after the fact&quot;, they may not have been an actual goal. Are people healthier due to health fitness trackers? Will doctors have better care due to the deluge of data? Can researchers actually get better data from cloud sourcing informatics, allowing their published work to happen faster or iterate on ideas quicker?<p>I wouldn&#x27;t put a business plan on those goals, but I&#x27;ll take them as a side effect for a gadget that everyone buys for whatever reason.