AFAIK, Apple's supply chain is not only legendary, but they'll commit huge amounts of capital to new hardware products in advance. This allows them to more or less own the output of a given supplier's factory, forcing other companies to pay spot prices for their follow-on products.
Not contradicting you at all, but those of us who have been Apple customers for decades now (cripes) have to smile wryly whenever Apple's supply chain is described as "legendary". Back in the bad old days they never could seem to get supply and demand to match up, so whenever they had a hit, they couldn't capitalize on it as well as they should have.
Everybody knows that Steve restored vision to Apple when he came back, and that Jonathan Ive revolutionized its design language, but fewer people seem to know how much of what makes Apple 2.0 great boils down to the incredibly stable and responsive delivery platform that Tim Cook has built.
You're right that they should stop trying to copy Apple, and instead try to make something better. To me, Android is only more open and flexible, but it's not better. It might be good enough, though, just like Windows was good enough and more "open" than MacOS.
But without the right product, no amount of marketing is going to get you any real volume. And without volume, no amount of supply-side management is going to get the great product margins.
But, iphones have been out for a while. Long enough for new factories to be set up, old factories to increase capacity, contracts to run out... Should be long enough for things to catch up. Why are iphone's best competitors still about the same price or more?
Logistics isn't just the factories. Buying power, relationships, knowledge, and engineer / material expertise are all factors. Having your own retail chain doesn't hurt either (so you don't have to agree to no cell contract = no WiFi nonsense). Motorola doesn't have the combo.
