We have run out of freely allocatable IPv4 and equipment isn't catching up to IPv6 - it's very relevant here.

Neither Apple, not IBM, actually need that many publicly useful set of IPs. IBM would be smart to sell them off. Apple is probably going to sit on them. (I used to work at IBM and that 9 block was very confusing to me, considering that IBM isn't even that big of a DC operator these days)