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Andrew H. is right, this is a factor: I think from memory apple (reported) R&D is currently around 7-8%, so they do spend quite a bit. Not IBM territory which I think is like 13%, but still reasonable in this day and age so that is a factor of the cost. That said their margins are still very impressive. An element of this (by all reports) has been Tim Cook (now CEO) and the massive cash reserves they have to leverage very good parts/supply contracts. This is also a factor of their product lines being narrow so they buy the same parts in massive qualities (economies of scale and all that).
It's funny though, I personally don't feel Apple invents in the novel way that I (personally) think of true innovation, a lot of their innovation is taking existing technologies and concepts and blending them into a nicer whole which is an art in of itself, but often doesn't involve the real cool future concepts that comes out of other technology compaies like IBM labs and even people like Microsoft, or Google with their automated cars.
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