This is true, they haven’t caught up with the market realities that when you don’t have much to offer you should stop charging so much – but I guess they are doing it (a) not to cannibalize sales of their older models and (b) because they are a public company and have to squeeze every penny so investors and shareholders are happy. Which creates a vicious circle and the customer does not win.
I don’t know for sure if the direction that Apple took is due to Tim Cook leading. I mean, Steve Jobs would likely focus more on useful and bug-less and ergonomic software which would be great, yes.
It seems that everyone who wants to make money from technology still believes in the fairy tale that only the hardware is important. Samsung’s smartphones are particularly bad in this regard.
Seems only the Chinese – Huawei, Xiaomi, OnePlus – get the importance of software, optimization, slick and lag-less UI, good support (especially Xiaomi support their phones with updates for good amount of years). Kind of sad because the Chinese are also under orders to hand every last personal data piece to the ruling party but oh well, I suppose a PiHole + an on-device blocker help somewhat.
Truthfully, I am still buying an iPhone 12 Pro Max (or 13 Pro Max if I don’t do it until September) because I am on a 8 Plus and I want a bigger screen plus an investment for the next 3 or so years but yes, Apple charges too much. I guess that is alleviated by not everyone upgrading every year.