&gt; just cloning the IPhone<p>Because it&#x27;s considerably harder to do than you&#x27;re making it out to be. It&#x27;s not just the iPhone hardware that makes it valuable to customers, it&#x27;s the support infrastructure Apple has in place, the software they write for it, the ecosystem of other products, etc. And let&#x27;s be honest here - companies basically are cloning the iPhone for all intents and purposes and Apple basically clones other companies&#x27; successful products as well. They sue the crap out of each other as a cost of doing business and a bunch of lawyers buy new BMWs and lake homes and we all pay a few bucks more for our electronics. It&#x27;s absurd.