Sorry, but you don't understand how stock buybacks work.

The purpose of a stock buyback is to reward shareholders by increasing stock price. The increase is caused because of the reduction in float. Each share represents more of the company after the buyback than before. [1] If that wasn't true, then the share price wouldn't increase, and there would be no reason to do a buyback.

The bought back shares could be kept by the company as treasury stock, but the company can't vote treasure stock or pay dividends. [2] The outstanding shares represent 100% ownership of the company.

So to say that stock buybacks make companies less "beholden to shareholders" compared to dividends is just wrong. Dividends and stock buybacks are exactly equivalent except for tax treatment (and possibly market pressure).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_repurchase [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasury_stock

Shares that are bought back by a company are destroyed. Thus, increasing the value of the remaining shares.

Of course, unless the shell company is completely outside of the control of Apple. Which would then beg the question, how are you going to get money into that shell company without upsetting the shareholders.

If that shell company would be owned by Apple, it implies the outstanding shareholders would own that company, including all the shares it holds in Apple, too.