Wait, one of the things I've heard about Facebook is that there is almost no change control. Especially on the mobile app side, that people just add code to the app without any real oversight, which is why it's grown to such a large codebase.
I don't recognize the currency offhand (Google says its the Indian Rupee), but I can tell you that in the US, the difference is not that much. Especially because most people tend to buy phones on contract, which means you're going to be paying about the same down payment, and the same monthly payment for all of them. So there's very little difference between an Android's price or an iPhone's price.
It very well can. However, unless they absolutely have to, the company is not going to pass those on to customers. Think of it: If you could save 5 cents per part, and you didn't have to pass that savings onto anyone, just keep it for yourself and shareholders, why wouldn't you?
Some are, some aren't. Some are run by charities and churches, some by private companies. Many of these, especially ones in smaller, more rural communities, will receive government funds to help provide services.
"As for the actual device itself: why would I buy it with the remote, subscriptions, dongles, etc. when I could buy an HDMI cable and use my laptop's "apps" instead? Is Apple trying to create an app ecosystem with the TV/Siri Remote as the form factor instead of the iPhone/finger Macbook/trackpad/mouse? That makes absolutely no sense to me."
Because I don't want to constantly be getting up off the couch. I don't want to have to find some place to stash the laptop, and then remember to close or turn down the brightness on the screen after having to get up to fiddle with it.
It's not documented or in the public headers. Meaning you do have to do a bit of fiddling in your app, but that just amounts to using reflection to use the API.
Just because an API is private doesn't mean it's privileged. Indeed, many once private APIs have later become public. Apple does scan the binaries that are uploaded for private API use, effectively banning them from the store.
One of the main reasons for banning use of private APIs is that those are usually in flux. They're not release worthy, and the last thing any platform maker, be they Apple, Google, or Microsoft, wants, is for a private change to break a bunch of 3rd party apps. These private APIs might also be doing things that they don't want just anyone to be able to do.