Is Apple a software company, hardware company, or rent-seeking company?

For Apple's entire existence, there's been a sort of "debate" over what sort of company Apple is. Are they a hardware company, or are they a software company? The truth, of course, is that they're both, and their ability to deliver at the highest level on both fronts is what has made their products so compelling.

However, in 2026, I think there's a third contender. In addition to being a hardware company and a software company, Apple is very much a rent-seeking company. Based on how lots of people talk about Apple these days, that rent-seeking characteristic seems to be the only absolute hard requirement for them. Basically, unless the winds really change in the future, Apple will never make another computer where they don't always collect 15-30% of all commerce that happens on that device.

Quinn Nelson recently raised the possibility of Apple making a portable gaming device. Based on what we know about Apple, it seems like they could make a really nice competitor to the Nintendo Switch, the Steam Deck, and other gaming PCs. They even have the Game Porting Toolkit for macOS, which they could use to make it possible for people to play Windows games they purchased on something like Steam, the Epic Games Store, or Xbox on the device. Quinn was on The Talk Show last week, and the conversation honestly depressed me a bit. The primary reason both John and Quinn seem to think this will never happen is that Apple would never make a new product where they don't control what you can buy while taking their chunk of the profits.

Whether that's actually true or not, I find it a bit depressing that that's where we are in the Apple punditry, where we won't even entertain the idea of Apple making something, not because the hardware would be bad, not because the software couldn't work, and not because it isn't the sort of thing the company does, but because they wouldn't be able to collect their commission on everything sold for it.