metrix

I agree it's hard to see it as a pro model if you are getting the beach ball because of a lack of ram, yet adding another $200 to upgrade to 16Gb makes it just too high. I am really starting to waiver on the value of Apple products. 

I believe the Chinese knockoff market has a lot to do with the lower market share and don't see the problem going away ever. Take a look at this copycat, i can guarantee these are all over the place and this is just one vendor.
http://www.technobuffalo.com/2016/06/24/iphone-7-plus-leaked-photos-chinese-knockoff/

sog35 said:

Look at Surface
Look at Macbook
Make sure Macbook does not look like a copy of Surface

It blows my mind why Apple has not made these products yet:

1. A true 2 in 1 Mac/iPad. The tech is there to do it already.

2. An iPhone with smaller bezel. Come on. Even POS china companies can do this

3. New MacPro

No idea why Apple is slow now days

At this point, Apple selling any laptops at their margins is remarkable compared to Dell and HP selling them at half the price. Stop thinking volume and look at profit margin. The Win/laptop is dead or quite near. When Dell is selling new laptops for $199 and that meets 95% of most customers need to surf, do Word and simple spreadsheets it's not long before you find those being given away with purchase of mouse pad.

I have to believe the drop in China is due to so many Apple knockoffs, not just iPhones but iPads too. They are duplicated physically with such accuracy I can not tell the difference however they are always running something other than iOS. I believe they are sold at 1/5 the cost of the real thing. 

Let's say that Samsung completely copied the iPhone, which isn't far from the truth according to their own communications. Now since Samsung doesn't have a set of processes to complete the final product their profit margin is near nothing.  Samsung probably new that profit margin was going to be near zero so they had nothing to lose if they were only going to be sued for profit. You can't make the penalty equal to the potential profit or even close to it otherwise the risk is totally worth it and its obvious that Samsung is willing to take the risk because it's worth it to them. The penalty has to have teeth that goes after all production cost at least lets try going the opposite direction for awhile.