drewyboy

Here's the problem. If anything goes bad on the motherboard, it's a replacement. Yea it doesn't happen often but the biggest issue is the SSD. What's the expected life of these? From Phil's comments, you should be upgrading every 3-4 max. If you're outside the one year warranty and SSD goes bad, new motherboard at the cost of what? 1k? When I could pick up a Samsung SSD for $150 on Amazon?

Point is, who hasn't had a hard drive/ssd fail on them? If it does, it's a throw away device at that point. Just to re-iterate, it's not about the backup or data itself, it's about the cost of fixing an SSD failure.

I find it interesting that many are writing off Sog. Yes, they are being a little dramatic, but their underlining question is completely valid. Oh, and someone on here used the horrible "they're making billions" rebuttal. 

Sog brings up a good point that Apple hasn't released anything amazing lately. iPhone gets thinner every year and adopts the best of what other phones have. It's really not that hard to know pretty much what they'll turn out. I will give them though, the 64 Bit ARM. That was really amazing, but from a users perspective, we don't see a night and day difference. I mean really, many here hooped and hollered about it yet many Apple folks are so quick to point out "oh it's just a spec, user experience is what matters". Pot calling the kettle black if you ask me.

iPad... oh iPad. You've never really had a home. You showed lots of potential yet you continue to drag along being "just" relevant enough. Sure, it's good for people who don't do much. I've actually recommended it to some folks who I know it would be more than sufficient for their needs. But it has yet to fulfill it's promise of being a "game changer" in the medical and educational industries.

As for the Apple watch, I will hold judgement for another year or so. It's a new category and rightfully should be given time to expand and see its potential.

AppleTV, as far as I see, it's an utter fail. Apple has had YEARS to do something and have fallen flat on their face with it. Overpriced video streamer. Does it have potential? Maybe, but that's what we've been sold on for the last 5 years or so. No live tv? That's Apple's fault. No other company that wanted live tv seemed to have a problem obtaining it. Apps, that would have been "revolutionary" 3 years ago. They fell behind completely on that one. The thing is, developers have options now. And on devices that are in far many more homes than an AppleTV.

And lastly... oh mac oh mac oh mac. Do they still make those anymore? Jokes aside, there isn't going to be much going on here for any manufacturer. Market is matured. Now Apple just goes stingy on ram & ssd. They've always been stingy on ram, only difference is that now I can't put in my better and cheaper RAM on my own. Same with SSD.

Apple is no longer the company that wows. It has become a "life style" brand and that is why it sells billions. So the guy that used that as an argument, the only person that wins are investors. If you are not, I don't know why you're celebrating because Apple has yet to do anything fruit full, strictly from a customers perspective, with those billions. Billions for Beats? Fashion. Hermes band? Fashion. New store layouts? Fashion. iPhone? Sacrificing function for fashion.

I've personally started to re-integrate other companies into my life because Apple just doesn't cut it anymore. I'll always have a Mac and probably an iPhone but everything else... there's something better. Better watch, better router, better video streamer, better headphones, etc. Take a minute to actually look at things objectively and you'll see that too. Apple has lost its shine.

awilliams87 said:

Why would they sell a new phone for under $500? I can't see how that would possibly make sense.

It all depends on what they pack into it. If it's basically a iPhone 6s in 4" form, I'm guess we'll see it at $549. If they mix and match "old" and "new", I could see it drop to a $449/$499 or something like that.