ApplePoor

When the side wall of a tire blows out, there is no fixing the tire. Sounds like the sidewall of Apple's AI team just blew out.

The phrase "grab your socks" and the proposed new higher prices go together very well.....

I have had a Platinum level Amex card since 1968. (Before it became Amex it was Patterson Travel Service) The number of places that accept the card has dwindled every year. It is our travel card for airline tickets and hotels and is the card to have in an emergency. The long term relationship is a plus in our credit rating.

We also have CostCo City Bank and Apple Pay that I carry daily. We usually get more than $1k back annually for each of these accounts.

We have Wells Fargo accounts at a local branch used for cash access with our debit cards and handling the "Old Folks" accounts.

Amex worked okay for CostCo for us and was still accepted in the UK CostCo last time we were over there.

So having the three top Financial flavors in hand is okay with us. Really have no preference which way Apple goes as it will be transparent to us, the users.

Folks, this is an Apple device and one pays dearly to play in the Apple world. 

Back in the early 1990s, Apple's IIfx was king of the Apple computer mountain. Fully loaded with 32Mb of third party memory, a very heavy 21" Radius color CRT monitor with Radius video card and a 80 MB hard drive, the cost was close to $12,000 in 1990 dollars. I checked and that amount in today's dollars is over $29,000 so the current loaded Mac M3 Ultra Mac Studio at just over $14,000 is a relative bargain.

Photoshop v1.3 was on several 3.5" discs. 

One buys the tool for the job. If one is not doing the "AI" thing, then the M4 Max Mac Studio is probably sufficient or even the M4 Pro mini which is close to the power of the M1 Ultra Studio with nearly double the single core speed of the M1 Ultra.

Costs loss of money to fly Cook all over the world in the Apple private jet. Look at the names of the Directors on the Board. Ever wonder how many fly to the Board of Director's meeting in their own or company private jet. Many of these are conies who sit on each other's BoDs. Not too likely to bet harsh on one of their own as it could one of them next week in the hot seat....