[tbelldesignco]

Apple during 6 and 6s is a different thing than now. I went to my Apple store during pandemic that after two year of use my XS MAX died on me. They replaced me on the spot and I had AppleCare+. They tried changing the battery for free (which wasn't the problem) With other phone manufacturer like Samsung they would just tell you to straight up pay for repair, atleast that what they told me when I had a Galaxy. There was a battery gate controversy with Apple yes, but as with anything Lithium-ion battery do degrade over time and Apple even replaced the battery for the people who were affected so its not really they trying to do planned obsolesce just that the new features caused a strain on the old technology that is 6S/6.

Again you are talking about bells and whistles, not sure where you got that from, Apple doesn't force you to buy their accessories and you can always buy cheaper alternative at a different brand or retailer. Also Apple does not force you to upgrade its your choice whether you do or not. They will tell you when you go to their store but you have a choice!

I have a MacBook Pro 16" and I have not payed for one accessories ever and I am not to buy straight from Apple if I have to because there are cheaper better alternative accessories and Apple do not stop me from using it.

There is a legit reason why it is hyped. It because of their premium product. I use my MacBook everyday for professional development and it saved me many headaches I would get otherwise if I were to use Windows. It works for me and it works for countless million/billion people. Apple is just like any other company, they just trying to make money. You cannot just slap greedy on their face because they are trying to make money. If you think they are trying to sell bell and whistle just do not buy it, simple. If you do not like their upgraded phone just do not upgrade. Its all simple.

Yes, that's what I was saying was the experience of the ecosystem. Just today I got a new work phone, within an hour, both of my iPhones (11 Pro Max and 12 Pro) are synced, setup and communicating between my AppleWatch, HomePods, MacBook Pro, and iPads. They just work. I also agree with you on your accessories bit. Own one Apple Case for my 11 Pro Max and it is the smart battery case, and the rest of my Apple Watch straps, iPad Cases and even 12 Pro case are all sourced from 3rd Parties.

[Littlemaster]

In my view, Apple trademark has great goodwill which they can use for overpricing their products. Some people won't buy cheap quality product or service. Apple is focusing these customers who think the more price the more quality product. If you are selling something in a cheap price the demand will get reduced after a while, you can't get high profit to make expenses in the future. While they take this high profit they can provide better service. There will be a policy strategy and plan for fixing the product price. Business is something which we need to learn customers' psychology. Overpriced items get much attraction.

[mzltest]

In my view, Apple trademark has great goodwill which they can use for overpricing their products. Some people won't buy cheap quality product or service. Apple is focusing these customers who think the more price the more quality product. If you are selling something in a cheap price the demand will get reduced after a while, you can't get high profit to make expenses in the future. While they take this high profit they can provide better service. There will be a policy strategy and plan for fixing the product price. Business is something which we need to learn customers' psychology. Overpriced items get much attraction.

I personally do not totally agree your opinion. Seems many customers of Apple are already used to Apple's ecosystem or at least have a positive assumption of it.They won't get too much sales than usual for extreme overpricing,'cause those who are not interested in its ecosystem won't have too much curiosity on it's product too.

Cheaper things can maintain demand as there are always some people who would like to try them,and these companies announce new products every year or so and then some people have a demand for newer and better products,And as far as I know,though apple might downgrade the phones performance,they are still providing ota updates to older models.So people have a demand for newer and better technology,rather than urges of updating their phone,

[fChk]

I guess that the image posted by @OldMeister in Post#6 best summarizes Apple's MO(/Modus Operandi).

Apple is all about the brand. The vast majority of Apple's Customers -if not all-, when they buy something from Apple, they don't buy for the product itself BUT for the BRAND!.. and they are willing to pay big bucks for it!!.. That's it!.. To them buying Apple stuff is a way to make THAT implicit social class statement!..

Apple ceased to be about the products a long long time ago!.. It has always been about the brand and the 'social status' image it tries to project.. to the eyes of the gullible beholders...

So where this attitude came from?.. It has of course a historic context that's essentially due to the fact that Apple's computers were manufactured in-house, from bottom up(hardware + software) making their prices way too expensive to be accessible to everybody else. In contrast to the IBM-clones (PCs) whose hardware where manufactured by anybody willing to do it and the software(/OS) supplied by the rising M$$ company.

This commercial situation made Apple to carve itself a niche in the high-end market of desktop computers (essentially by polishing the design), just the same way it did subsequently in the smartphone market and the other gizmos and services they currently sell, including their cloud services of course!..

Nothing unusual really at this point; it's essentially a celebration of the Neoliberal attitude of the "Greed is Good" immoertalized in the classic Oliver Stone's movie 'Wall Street (1987)' during the Reagan years in the US:

What's more unorthodox about Apple is when they were caught 'deliberately slowing down older iPhone models ...'; a deed for which they were fined and they did apologies for it...

I would guess these kind of practices may be common among smartphones vendors as well -I don't really know as I'm not a smartphone and other gizmos fan- but Apple was caught doing it in addition to the fact that it's  a pioneer in US Tax evasion and job outsourcing and so on and so forth... So, YES, Apple Inc. is TOO GREEDY!

[xdude]

I think I mentioned somewhere in this thread Apple did try to slow old phones and got busted. They had to pay like 500 million or so. But it was like 25$ per customer and that didn't help those poor guys since many thought the phone has gone bad and bought new phones. There is no doubt about the quality of Apple phones but decided if it's worth the price is a purely personal decision. I never could justify their prices and haven't even bother checking what they have. I wouldn't pay more than $400 for a phone and I found Samsung is great then I could recent Readme phones are even compared to prices and proformance. This performance is also a personal choice. I didn't buy mine for the camera, I bought it for battery life, and its the power of running without any lags.

Apple having only one phone model has its own pros and cons. Yes, they can focus on the quality of this one phone, with fewer headaches. But when you have a quality product some customers don't see a point in upgrading unless it's necessry. Do they have no problem trying dirty tricks either.

[Kururin]

I guess that the image posted by @OldMeister in Post#6 best summarizes Apple's MO(/Modus Operandi).

Apple is all about the brand. The vast majority of Apple's Customers -if not all-, when they buy something from Apple, they don't buy for the product itself BUT for the BRAND!.. and they are willing to pay big bucks for it!!.. That's it!.. To them buying Apple stuff is a way to make THAT implicit social class statement!..

Apple ceased to be about the products a long long time ago!.. It has always been about the brand and the 'social status' image it tries to project.. to the eyes of the gullible beholders...

So where this attitude came from?.. It has of course a historic context that's essentially due to the fact that Apple's computers were manufactured in-house, from bottom up(hardware + software) making their prices way too expensive to be accessible to everybody else. In contrast to the IBM-clones (PCs) whose hardware where manufactured by anybody willing to do it and the software(/OS) supplied by the rising M$$ company.

This commercial situation made Apple to carve itself a niche in the high-end market of desktop computers (essentially by polishing the design), just the same way it did subsequently in the smartphone market and the other gizmos and services they currently sell, including their cloud services of course!..

Nothing unusual really at this point; it's essentially a celebration of the Neoliberal attitude of the "Greed is Good" immoertalized in the classic Oliver Stone's movie 'Wall Street (1987)' during the Reagan years in the US:

What's more unorthodox about Apple is when they were caught 'deliberately slowing down older iPhone models ...'; a deed for which they were fined and they did apologies for it...

I would guess these kind of practices may be common among smartphones vendors as well -I don't really know as I'm not a smartphone and other gizmos fan- but Apple was caught doing it in addition to the fact that it's  a pioneer in US Tax evasion and job outsourcing and so on and so forth... So, YES, Apple Inc. is TOO GREEDY!

This is funny, Most people buy Apple for just "get it and forget it". They never need to tinker with anything, and "everything just works!" I personally myself never pay for "Brand" I pay for "functionality" and "seamless-ness". As @tbelldesignco mentioned its mostly about the ecosystem, once you are in you are just amazed but how well it works. You don't have to install other software to connect what you are doing from one device to another device. As said before professionals use this to save time and headaches between software interoperability that would be a big headache if not for the seamless-ness. Also I have said before yes Apple has their history of shadiness but which company does not? Did people already forgot about Note8 battery fiasco? And even Samsung did same thing Apple did--slow down the phone "planned obsolesce".

[xdude]

That's true Samsung tried to pull that too. But Apple got finned 5 fold of what Samsung has to pay because Samsung warned their phones will slow down if users upgrade to newer OS than they recommend. They got fined for not telling users it's their doing rather than phones fault. Apple had to pay about half a billion in total because they didn't bother saying anything to users. All these companies try to pull these one way or other it's just my comparison Apple is notorious for these things. This is why I ended up looking for other alternations. I used to be big Samsung fan.

But also Some preferences are geo-focused. IN North America, especially in USA Apple, Samsung, LG dominate the market in that order. Chinese brands don't have even a 105 share even combined. Now in Europe it's different. Apple, Samsung used to have a bigger share but now Xiaomi and OPPO growing their market share very fast since 2020. Huawei is losing its share of its problems with the US government and the Playstore problem.