You expect them to release multiple completely new product lines every year?
Not new lines, new products within existing lines. And not every year, the every year cycle is more apple stupidity. When there's new tech that makes it worth it. Ivy Bridge/USB3 alone make every apple desktop very obsolete.
You don't consider the redesigned iPod touch to be a product update? Or the iPod nano that's an even bigger redesign? If you're expanding this discussion to all of 2012 then don't forget the 3rd gen iPad and AppleTV.
Really adding 1080p to appleTV...wow major innovation, must have spent 100,000 developer hours on that one.
Making an iPhone 5 without the cellular module, must have been a least a million dev hours.
How come every other hardware vendor had an Ivy Bridge desktop within a week of the chips being out? How come every other cell phone maker in the world releases more than one handset per year? And not on pathetic annual cycles. When new tech is available the vendors make it available to their customers. Apple is the only company leaving their users in the stone age.
Also now the October 23rd event is confirmed, with multiple sources reporting an iPad Mini, 13" Retina Macbook Pro, updated iMac, and updated Mac Mini.
Oh a mac mini too. Not going to happen. Not the point, you're already crediting apple with rumor? And from what the rumors say, the iMac and mini will at best be tweaks so they're 6 months out of date instead of 18.
13" Retina is just a minor product variant too, not a new product.
If those reports turn out to be true, then by my count that leaves the iPod shuffle, iPod Classic, and Mac Pro as the only major product lines to not be updated in 2012. Like I said, to some people it doesn't matter how long the list of updates is as long as their favorite device isn't on it.
Rumor is there's going to be 24 mini variants. Well I guess there's 24 distinct innovative products by your mindset. Hey they should license crayola and make 64 colors of every product, there's some major innovation that will up their number of releases.
What more are you expecting? A complete break-away redesign of every product line every year with a couple of completely new product lines thrown in to boot?
No, just modern tech less than 2 years before it hits the market. Even the iPhone 5 is a 4S with a slightly longer screen, crappy enclosure, and crappy battery. That was worth waiting a year for. LTE, they're literally years behind. They're the only so-called high end smartphone that's not 720p
How can any computer company possibly sell computers without USB3 in 2012? USB3 is 2009 tech. There's all sorts of PC's as cheap as $200 that have it, but not a single apple desktop at all. Not a single apple product before 2012.
I'm not even interested in the iMac's or minis anymore. Ivy bridge is so 6-months ago, it's already too old to bother buying. But I'm not going to wait 4 years for Timmy to bring out Haswell.
Apple is a joke. When you see an Apple logo on someone's computer you can laugh at them for paying premium prices for obsolete junk. When you see someone with an iPhone you can laugh at them for paying premium prices for a cheap second-rate handset that would have been decent 2 years ago.
I'm done with them. I have multiple real apple desktops in use, but my latest is a Hackintosh that blows every apple on the market out of the water and cost $1000. It's so much better I doubt I'll ever buy another apple desktop. I'm about to replace my iPhone 4S with Galaxy S3. I can't stand the dinky iPhone screens anymore. My Sandy Bridge MBP is nice and I'd be happy to buy another when Haswell comes out, but if they just switch to retina and airs, I'm done buying Apple laptops. So basically I was a die hard apple user, I've converted at least a dozen people. And I'm so totally finished with apple.