Comment by wtf_is_up

AAPL pays a dividend and has a substantial buyback program. Their cash problem, if you want to call it that, is that they bring in so much revenue with nice margins that it is impossible to allocate it all. So they return some value back to shareholders through divvies and buybacks, spend what is reasonable on R&D, and keep cash on hand for flexibility. They don't seem that big on M&A, but that is probably a good thing (looking at Cisco for example)