Fuck 'em.

My anecdote: I had PC computers I never really liked, then I bought the first iPhone. It just worked. Well. It was slick, it was easy, it was intuitive. I bought an iPod. I bought a MacBook which I loved. Another iPhone. An iPad. Another iPhone.

Then Apple soldered the memory and hard drive to the motherboard. Eventually my 2008 MacBook wasn't cutting it, so I bought a four year old MBP on eBay and increased the RAM to 16 GB for $70 (it's $200 to upgrade from 8 to 16 GB on current MBPs). My 2.9 GHz i7 is probably an older processor by current standards, but it's $300 to move from a standard 2.7 GHz i5 to a 3.1 GHz i7. For $400, Apple will replace the standard 128 GB storage with 512 GB. For $150 I can replace the spinning disk in this computer with a 525 GB SSD. Once I pull the trigger on the SSD, I'll have spent less than $850 and am not convinced doubling that for a new MBP would have given me a significantly better experience.

I just don't see Apple as a brand making items that are targeted to me anymore. If they sold a MacBook Pro with user replaceable parts, maglock charging + two USB ports, if they sold an iPhone that had USB-C (Lightning is a dead-end), came with USB-C earbuds but still had a headphone jack, I'd keep shelling out for their products.

If (when) this iPhone dies, a new one is no longer the top of the list. I hope this computer will last at least a few more years, but if I had to replace it today I'd be looking at a Surface. The little HP laptop I have at work is a nice enough experience. And Windows 10 looks nice.

What really put the nail in the coffin in my mind was having the "courage" to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone and leave Lightning, then roll out a MBP with USB-C and a headphone jack.

It's just my anecdote, one user whose Apple spending isn't even a blip on the sales in my neighborhood, but I think they've screwed up.