Of course Apple has higher manufacturing margins. They do more than other manufacturers; other manufacturers don't necessarily design the CPU or write the OS. Google writes the Android OS for free in an attempt to subsidize people's consumption of web advertising, but Apple has to make their money by actually selling phones. Software talent isn't exactly cheap in Silicon Valley.

You're right about the Tick-Tock, but since Apple hasn't announced it as a policy, people expect every release to be a Tick.

I think you're wrong about Apple being greedy. Didn't they double the RAM? 16/32/64 for the price of 8/16/32 in the past? Also, the camera, processor and radio chips are all new from the original iPhone 4. The form factor is the same, but the antenna are a new design. And I think they are still working off the margin hit from the retina display.

The only people expecting a tick-tick-tick release model haven't been paying attention to what Apple has almost always done.

They haven't doubled the storage (at the same price) for 2 years now.

iPhone 3GS: 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299.

iPhone 4: 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299.

iPhone 4S: 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, 64GB for $399.

Indeed not - with the 4S they added unlimited storage at the same price, and retrospectively added it to any device running iOS 5, with 5GB for some uses.

It may not be flash memory, but it has to count - it is what Apple intend to be used for bulk music storage with iOS 5.