Apple head honcho Tim Cook has indicated that he'd be willing to settle the wide-ranging, ongoing patent disputes raging over smartphones and fondleslabs - provided of course that his adversaries admit everything and pay up.

When asked about the fruity firm's Great Patent Wars during last night's earnings call, Cook said that he didn't like litigation, but Apple would carry on with it as long as it saw the need.

"So if we could get to some arrangement where we could be assured that's the case and a fair settlement on the stuff that's occurred, I would highly prefer to settle than to battle," he said, not so much extending the olive branch as acknowledging that he had one at home somewhere and he might be willing to dig it out of the attic if only everyone would just behave.

Cook was taking questions after announcing that Apple had once more pulled it out of the bag in its second quarter, increasing net income by 94 per cent to $11.6bn.

The fruity firm had once more managed to shift a shedload of iDevices, including its iPhone smartphones and the "new" iPad, the latest iteration of its fondleslab.

Cook also talked about the tablet market and the still-in-its-gestation Ultrabook sector, saying he couldn't really see the need for a "ultratablet" hybrid device that could be thin, light, have a keyboard as well as a touchscreen as well as the ability to fold up into a neat bundle that also happens to protect the screen.

"You can converge a toaster and refrigerator but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user," he deadpanned.

"I think anything can be forced to converge but the problem is that the products are about trade-offs and you begin to make trade-offs to the point where what you have left at the end of the day doesn't please anyone."

He added that Apple still reckoned the tablet market, and of course its very own fondleslab, had plenty of room to grow still more and become even more ubiquitous.

"Our view is that the tablet market is huge – we've said that since day one... we were using them here and it was already clear to us that there were so much you could do and the reasons that people would use those would be so broad.

"And that's precisely what we've seen; the iPad has taken off not just in consumer but in education and in enterprise, it's everywhere you look now." ®

Related stories

• Tim Cook spurns $75m Apple divvy (25 May 2012)
• Analysis The truth about Apple's mind-boggling low tax rate (30 April 2012)
• IPCom's 'priority call' patent ruled too broad, world+dog faints (26 April 2012)
• Fabulous execution prompts Apple to rein back Q3 outlook (24 April 2012)
• Apple profits almost double on iOS product sales leap (24 April 2012)
• Apple sued for every touchscreen device by Flatworld prof (23 April 2012)
• Samsung smacks Apple back with 8-patent knuckleduster (19 April 2012)
• Woz warns that patent palaver will stifle startups (10 April 2012)