hopestillflies

It seems the smaller keyboard (without the number pad) was never offered in space grey. I saw the news a little while back about the discontinued products and was at the point of needing another pair (keyboard and trackpad) but wanted the space grey this time rather than the silver/white of my other set that was going to be now relocated to a different office. That was when I first discovered that the basic keyboard wasn't available in space grey. I went ahead and picked up a trackpad while supplies lasted and then found the Satechi Slim X1 in space grey. Goes right in line aesthetically with the apple products and so far I've been fairly happy with its function. I'm not sure there could be a replacement for the Magic Trackpad though, it's soooo nice.

Does that car mount have additional magnets in it? Because it seems clear that Apple MagSafe charger was not intended to provide sufficient magnetism for mounting but rather a gentle magnetism for aligning the charging coil while still being fairly easy to slide the phone off. I assumed any forthcoming car mounts would have to employ stronger magnets for a secure mount. Just relying on the Apple Magsafe charger itself is a no go

Thats a bit of a bummer. Of course all of this is still just rumors. But some earlier rumors were suggesting it would start at 128 with a price of $650 (for the mini) which seemed like a dream come true (maybe too good to be true). Recently I think I saw a rumor of a $700 starting price and now this suggesting that could be for 64gb storage. Oh well, I guess we'll see soon enough. My 7 is barely hanging on these days and I'm really looking forward to that Mini. I was just hoping to get it for the best price possible.

lewchenko said:

The only aggressive thing I'm seeing here is the pricing changes in the last 2years. And not in a good way. Aggressive as in it will seriously hurt your wealth.

Especially in non US markets..

But it will line the pockets of Apple I guess..

These days £750/£800 (128Gb) gets you a mid range low res , XR edition. 2 years ago that was top end pricing.

Now top end (XS Max with 256GB) since there is no 128GB is £1249

I think I paid about £800 for my 7Plus 128Gb which was also pricey at the time. Going to an equivalent XS Max for the big screen is a £450 premium. Laughable. 

The increase is shocking. Quite disgusting. 

I'm not complaining because I couldn't afford to buy it.. I could. It's about value. And not wanting to be taken for a mug. 

Really not liking where Apple is going these days.

I don't think this is comparing apples to apples (no pun intended). When they skipped ahead last year to introduce the X out of order, I feel they were essentially starting a new product line, while the 8 carries on the development and pricing structure from the previous phones (5, 6, 7). This year, the XS and Max carry on the pricing structure of the X while the XR steps in to carry on from the 8. When you compare those prices they are much more similar. In fact if you look back to iPhone 5 you were paying $649 for the entry level which only had 16gb. The equivalent pricing to the entry level XR, $750, only had 32gb while the XR has 64gb. You reference the price changes in the last two years, but again if you're comparing to the XR, which I think we should be in this case, you've got the 7 and 8 initial pricing at $649 for 32gb and $699 for 64gb respectively. So from the 8 to the XR we have only a $50 increase for the same capacity, but you're actually getting a screen size bigger than the 8+ (which cost $799 when introduced). Comparing to your current 7+ 128gb you should be looking at the XR where you'd get the expected tech improvements for a two generation leap in an iPhone series AND a bigger screen (in a smaller overall package than the 7+) at only $799 for the 128gb (at launch in the US the 7+ 128 was $869). Again the XR is the successor to the 8, and the XS is a premium line asking a higher price.
All in all it's too rich for my blood. That's to say I just can't afford it, not that it's out of line with their pricing over the past years. Things are different now. I got my first iPhone at the 5 and paid $200 on contract with Verizon. Contracts were still the thing two years later and I sold my 5 for a good price so I could pay $200 for the 6 (so almost even trade). Within the next couple of years the trend changed and contracts and subsidies waned. So I wasn't going to upgrade since I was still happy with the 6 and would be saving money on the monthly payments after switching away from the contract plan and keeping my paid off phone. However, Verizon offered a deal which basically amounted to giving me a full price trade in for my 6 to upgrade to the 7, so I said sure why not. I don't foresee deals like that coming down the line this time so I'll ride the 7 for a while longer. Honestly I'd like to downsize. I've had the 6 and then 7 for four years and I find myself missing the smaller size. Don't feel like going through the trouble of switching to an SE (and giving up just a little bit of feature parity), so we'll see. If they do come around and introduce a new smaller phone sometime in the next year I'll probably switch, but otherwise I'll hang on to the 7 until it's hurting and then switch to whatever suits me best at that time.

tipoo said:

I'm hoping the starting storage and RAM aren't so gimped that you're right up to the rMBP pricing anyways once you upgrade those.

8GB/256GB would be a decent start point.

I believe 8gb/256gb has been the base for the retina MacBook since it's introduction. I have a base 2015 (the first year it was introduced) and it has 8/256.