> spending on research and development has grown significantly > to $3.4 billion—an increase of $1 billion over 2011

This can be construed as either a positive or a negative. It's positive if the R&D has a particularly focused scope, resulting in coherent products/technologies that actually hit the market. Often when there's a lack of vision a company (Microsoft is a great example) will produce a plethora of solutions in search of a problem and patent the shit out of everything along the way.

Hopefully this isn't a case of lack of vision where Apple is throwing crap at the wall until they find something that sticks and packing IP in the piggy bank for future lawsuits. Big R&D budgets can be a sign of this. We'll see.