> out-of-touch "activist" investors clamoring for short term growth and dividends

The company has 230 billion in the bank, they can surely remunerate their investors. OR invest in their own company more, quality is down over the past 5 years, they can invest in more engineers. The hardware lives extremely lengthy update cycles (on average 3 years? MacBook?) There is a lot they can do with their capital that will provide them with long term growth. Products like the Apple Watch wont do it.