Want to bring your friends over to my place to party? Sure, check our my app store for the monthly subscription fee.
This sets the existing “bring your own API” practice we find in lot of apps on its head and probably adds another fee. You pay for the platform, you pay for the service, and you pay to have the service use the platform’s hooks.
Someday, we’ll have to pay to mention the name “Apple” in MPU.
Katie
What is the alternative?
If the software vendor pays for the AI then there is a risk that either you will be frustrated when the usage limits are too low, or you have to pay too much for AI you do not use, or the vendor charges too little and cannot sustain his business.
Should Apple include free electricity when it sells computers?
With a company wide gross margin of around 45% I’m pretty sure they could afford to do while the device was under warranty. 
As long as Apple doesn’t make it mandatory to purchase OpenAI or Gemini, etc. services through the App Store, I don’t see a problem.
Perhaps rather than objecting to their 45% margins you might consider buying some AAPL stock.
It might shift your thinking from “what they could afford” to “what maximizes profit for the company.”
Bravo to Apple. There is a reason people are willing to pay those prices.
I buy Apple devices because of the high quality of their hardware, but that is the only reason. They are just another “publicly traded, profit driven corporation.”
That is exactly how it should be.
They make a good product solely because they want to make money.
You pay them a premium price solely because they make a good product.
The system works!