And India. And the Philippines. And loads of other developing countries. Meanwhile, Apple killed the best price/value iPhone they offered, the SE.

I just don't understand Apple's current product direction.

People are buying phones less often, so Apple is trying to increase the value (and subsequent price) of new phone models to encourage upgrades and to capture more money when people do upgrade (either because third party apps now run slow on the older hardware, or their old phone broke).

People don't stop buying gas when the price of gas goes up. They just conserve and figure out how to make it fit into their budget.

Also, Apple isn't (and has never) been trying to target the highest end phones at developing markets. They'll target those markets with the iPhone 6 and 6s.

That did not went well in the mid-90's if it weren't for the inverse acquision of NeXT.

>> I'm surprised to hear a need for 512GB storage

How should I store my lossless audio files then? I have a 6s and I am continuously having issues with space but I won't give up the jack port and nothing can change that. HiFi audio needs additional 10 years before it becomes viable on wireless (battery times, quality, etc.).

Well you most probably don't need all of that collection in your phone. Phones are generally lousy primary storage for, well anything including photos and music. Easy to lose, drown or destroy.

You also most probably wouldn't hear the difference between high bitrate mp3 and flac, unless you are genetically gifted with superior hearing and use expensive headphones on top of that.

But I guess its easier to shell tons of money and complain later rather than work a bit on managing your music collection/expectations.

I imagine it's not the primary storage for OP, but syncs from the library on Mac, which is probably has a backup strategy itself.

As commenter above noted, you probably don't need lossless audio on your portable device if you only listen through earbuds, but if you use connect it to some good speakers or high quality headphones, then why shouldn't you be able to?

As for the quality difference in general, I ripped my own CD collection at lossless quality many years ago because given the choice of the same quality or worse quality that I may or may not be able to discern, it's seemed more logical to take the former. The lost data would never have been recoverable later.

Exactly this. I don't understand why people are giving up on quality and bend over for guys like Tim Cook who push down worse quality products consistently. They need to realise that wireless audio is just not there for all the use cases (leave the jack alone) and instead of faster processors we need bigger storage.

I have my primary storage on my laptop (+ secondary backups). I sync music from my laptop to my phone. you are suggesting I should convert the music to lower quality because most people cannot distinguish between lossless and mp3? I should compromise because companies refuse to deliver what I want and what I would pay for? That is the really lousy argument. Btw. you do not need to be genetically gifted to hear the difference. Also you do not need an _expensive_ headphone you need one with great sound quality. There are plenty of hifi headphones with reasonable pricing.

The big question is do you really need that high quality of audio on the go? Is spotify/mp3 quality really hurts your ears that badly? I would rather spent money on home audio setup or highend mp3 player rather than pump all that money into iPhone. Plus listening lossless audio on the go in non silent environment seems pointless to begin with because of all the noise around interfering with music.

I use a hifi headphone that has amazing sound quality. Why should I give that up and move over to something worse? I think we as a society are responsible to reject if a company tries to push down something that is worse than the previous version. Capitalism and supply/demand works only if the purchasing power is smart about quality.

I looked into audio quality with minimal tech, ie just a smartphone and earphones. Those two together can’t outperform mp3. If anything can, it needs an amp and headphones. So I bought an adapter and mid range earphones.

iPhone 6s has amazing DAC, I have an amazing earphone and I use ALAC. This setup certainly outperforms mp3 + external DAC + mid range earphone.

I am sure the brokers who arrange the buy backs love them - all that nice $

Personally id rather have the dividend myself - that's real cash in my account not some vague if we spend x billion the share price might go up.

They did that too.

>Apple said Tuesday it has returned $275 billion in total capital to shareholders since 2012. ... Apple said it would be increasing dividends 16 percent to 73 cents per share.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/apple-buybacks-q2-2018.html

The lead in that article is "plan to return $100 billion to shareholders in a massive stock buyback,"

Id rather have my share of that $100 Billion that as a special dividend - than some woo woo share buyback.