Sales mean zip notta zilch to the end customer. I (and 99.99999% os the consumer public) couldnt care if they sold 1,000 or 100,000,000. That means nothing to the purchasing customer; its a meaningless statistic. To the Apple board and shareholders, sure. The point there was solely that Apple has the highest profits wihout the highest shipments because they are cheap- that iss my guess why no 120hz this year. Didn't want to pay Samsung for the displays; the tried and true run of the mill ones are cheaper, hence = more profits.
Competitive price? So if they make this year's Pros $1050/1150 that is "competitive" to what else is on the market at that cost or less? Hardware at a lower price point is competitive these days; minus the processor. But what does a geekbench higher than a laptop actually MEAN to the end user? Little. Most real-world metrics show similar overall performance with the newest Qualcomm staff; within fractions of seconds and margin of error at least. And you can get a device that does 99% of what an $1100 iPhone does- big OLED (some high refresh, big battery, pretty good cameras- for half to 2/3 the iphone cost these days. Good phones are getting cheap and cheap phones are getting good.
You can't just say competitive iOS device; then your choices are pay the Apple price or not. Only 1 company makes them and is a nonsensical argument. If you MUST have iOS you pay the piper whatever they ask, for better or for worse.
Samsung just committed to 3 years of major OS updates, even for midrange devices. While not 4-5, but getting better. And arguably overall package superior hardware already. The reasons to choose Apple other than locked in the ecosystem are dwindling in recent years. iPhones arent "bad" but they are stagnant. And calling them "Pro" without any pro specs a true shame.
Sales mean nothing to the topic at hand. If innovation was sales based we'd still be on a 3GS device. Why improve when you can sell suckers hundreds of millions of the same old at a very low production cost? McDonald's sells hundreds of millions of crap burgers, that doesnt make them good or improving the good of cuisine. Consistent is about all you can say about it; which is Apple. Consistently mediocre lately. The last decent phone innovation was 2017 iPhone X and that was already years late to the OLED party as is; so not exactly fully commendable there
Sometimes technology as a whole needs to be pushed forward regardless of sales. Arguing AGAINST features/people asking for more for their high dollar being spent, when you dont HAVE to use them if you dont want to, is frankly nonsensical. No one is going to not buy an iPhone if it had a smaller notch or 120hz (which the plan was to let it be shut off per early iOS14 betas; and battery life mitigated by LTPO displays Samsung is already using. But we can go back to my argument that if Apple didnt shrink the dang battery there would be life to spare too)
High sales can get you in trouble too- complacency. Why change/push things forward if you can keep shoveling the same manure for big profits? R&D etc for new tech cost big $$$ and eats profits. To me Apple corporate culture is give them enough to keep our high profits; they have lost that Job's edge to push tech and into Cook's bean counter culture.
But I get it, there are plenty of people out there who will buy whatever Apple ships, or dont care about x/y/z feature as long as its iOS. Maybe that is part of the problem here too.....
