It seems like Apple has been churning out refreshes of their products, but lately I've noticed that the steps that they take have increasingly diminished. The Iphone 4s isn't THAT big of an improvement over the Iphone4.
The premiums seem large, which is expected for a new product. It's unfitting that the components don't scale equivalently. Maybe it's just me. I've owned several Ipods, 2 or 3 nanos, and a couple of itouches. My girlfriend has had an iphone 3gs, and now has an iphone4.
The jump from the 3gs to the 4 was pretty large, and is definitively noticeable, which justifies the price tag. (albeit a particularly hefty one) The updates from the generations of other ipods have always scaled fairly well, in my opinion as well.
Is this just a marketing trick to dupe uninformed shoppers? I think it's possible, but anyone who does a little research will find that apple products are quite pricey. I always hear "but they last longer" or "they don't get viruses" or something like "they're better than...."
Anyone that has made the switch from pc to apple has always praised apple, and shunned pcs, but the majority of the time, the pc that they had was never maintained properly. Poor ventilation, from dust build up, and very few ever ran diagnostic tools, to identify and fix compounding problems.
I can agree that they're fairly reliable products, but the price v performance ratio is way off track. ( I'm sure every Tom'sHW member knows this)
/rant.