> Last year's model. Doesn't matter, your argument was that the new features of the current year model are "added simply to make it more expensive." If that's

> Last year's model. Doesn't matter, your argument was that the new features of the current year model are "added simply to make it more expensive." If that's true, the fact that its "last year's model" shouldn't make a difference to you. You wanted the phone to get cheaper, it did. > You are (probably intentionally) missing the point. Realistically if I'm missing it, it's because your point is obtuse. You seem to be complaining simultaneously that iPhones never get cheaper, but also you want them to get cheaper without any of the attendant things that make technology cheaper (like older technology or potentially less support lifetimes). The iPhone 15 bought today has exactly the same support lifetime as an iPhone 15 bought yesterday. But for some reason the fact that a new iPhone model was released today means for you that the 15 did not in fact get cheaper over the last 24 hours. > The good one was released in 2010-2011, which simply needed a newer screen in later models but Apple pushed the POS 12" Macbook instead, because the 2010-2014 (2015?) MBA was simply too cheap (for Apple) to be interested in. >They killed the old MBA form factor and replaced it with one they could charge more for. I really have no idea what you're talking about. The Macbook Air received annual refreshes every year except once in 2016. The 12 inch Macbook was released in April 2015, one month AFTER the 2015 MBA refresh. That 2015 Macbook which did come with a "retina" display retailed for $1299, the 2015 13 inch MBA retailed for $999. The MBA was never "killed", its form factor was never retired. I think what you're trying to say is that the missed 2016 update and the fact that it took to 2018 for the MBA to see a retina screen is some attempt by Apple to not have low price point laptops. The problem with that interpretation from my point of view is: 1) Apple continued to sell the MBA the entire time, compare to the Macbook moniker which was discontinued from 2011 until the 2015 model because they did supplant it with the MBP 13 inch instead 2) Apple released the 2015 MBA literally a month before the 2015 Macbook, if the goal was to replace the MBA, it would have been simpler to not release the same model year MBA for folks to compare against 3) The 2015 Macbook used the Intel M series processors, compared to the Core series in the MBA at the time. The M series allowed producing a computer in the MBA form factor that didn't have fans (something they couldn't make work in the MBA with the Core series chips until the last revision before the M1 MBA. To me that time period reads as Apple trying to make a MBA form factor machine that could run fanless and cooler, potentially by using a different chip set from Intel, but they were unsure if customers would accept the tradeoffs required to make that work. Certainly if the goal was just "more expensive" computers, Apple could have just raised the price of the MBA, which they did in 2018 with the retina model ($1199), before subsequently dropping the price each year after, until we'd hit the lowest base MBA price of $799 in 2020. None of that really suggest to me a company that is "engaging in feature-bloat to protect [a] price point" or thought the MBA "was too cheap". If cost was the driver, if "The only reason the Touch Bar existed was to make Macbooks more expensive", then why did Apple lower the prices on the MBA after raising them with the switch to Retina? Why release the 2015 MBA at all? Why do a refresh in 2017? Sure you might say "because their customers weren't buying the 2015 Macbook" but why bother with that at all? They could have just raised the prices along with a processor bump. They could have discontinued the MBA all together and the customer's would have been forced to choose between the 2015 MB and the MBPs, which were even more expensive. Why go back to a price point you claim they had no interest in serving and why continue to this day to come in at a mere $100 over that price point when the Apple M series chips would have been the perfect excuse to simply jack all the prices up and never look back?