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entropys said:

If  the [old] Air and Mini dominate the market, it would seem that the main reason sales are flat as is that newer models are perceived as a bad value proposition, mainly because of price. At least  the good news is that iPads are seen as the best tablets, even old iPads.  But like all things Apple these days, too expensive for what you get. Raising the price of the flagship model (the Pro) last year was a mistake.

melgross said:

foregoneconclusion said:

The mistake that you're making here, and in some other points, is drawing the conclusion that a sales drop is primarily due to the features/innovation. You don't actually know that. Nobody knows that. In fact, if you look at the flagship smartphone market as a whole, it's unlikely that's the case. Samsung has basically resorted to 2 for 1 deals to increase S7 sales volume. That doesn't exactly show confidence from Samsung in regards to any new hardware/software features they might include vs. the iPhone. 

You really can't go by Samsung these days. The last time they had a sales increase in their "S" series line was with the S4. It's been downhill every since.

Smartphones sales have been flat this year. But Apple's was down 16% last quarter YoY.  That's more than just from a flat market. So it's not that difficult to see that with Apple coming off a major change with the original 6 series that the 6S series failed to excite. While the feature set for the S series is nice, certainly, it's just not exciting, as going to bigger screens, and a new case, was.

This year, with a minor case change, will the rest of the feature set change that ho hum thinking? I don't particularly care, because as I said, we're on a two year upgrade plan. So we'll buy anyway. That's a whole three phones, but not enough to to move the needle.

If it's true that Apple will be making major changes next year, that will be exciting, assuming that what we are reading is mostly true. Major new case, OLED screen. Those alone can up sales more than a bit. And we'll see other upgrades as well, of course. Will we buy? Probably not, as we'll wait until the next year.

sflocal said:

It's amazing the f*****g idiots criticizing Apple over at MacRumors where I first read the article.  I see nothing wrong with what Apple is doing.  To think that there is no cost to maintaining the app store after an initial download is downright stupid and ignorant.  Spotify has benefitted greatly in the App store, and now believes it deserves special treatment.  Idiots.  This will backfire on them greatly.  Apple's response was elegant, to the point, and courteous.  If anything, it really comes across as to how Spotify is just behaving like a whiny little bitch.

What's really going on is that Spotify is not making any money off the Android users.  Of course, we're always reminded by the know-it-all Phandroids and trolls infesting this forum about the HUGE marketshare Android has... yet nobody makes any money off of them, and Android users don't spend money.  So what's Spotify to do than to just chew out Apple for wanting to control - and maintain - their iOS environment.

Whiners.  Any respect I had for Spotify just got flushed down the toilet.