They pay for placement with gratis or discounted hardware, not with dimes.<p>A long, long time ago, I did data entry for a local newspaper of campaign contributions records.  At that time, I learned what an &quot;in-kind&quot; contribution was.  This was when someone would, for instance, provide food for a campaign event.  The candidate who benefited was required to report the dollar amount of that food as an in-kind contribution.<p>Payment in kind is another term for barter.  The reporting requirement is so that public political campaigns could not hide sources of support by failing to report barter-like transactions.<p>And you shouldn&#x27;t mislead people by saying Apple does not pay for product placement.  It does pay.  It pays via barter, rather than with cash, but it pays.