Fair point, but there have been many examples of Apple wanting customers to buy the more expensive item. For instance, they did not discontinue the iPod touch 4th generation when the 5th generation came out. Why did they continue selling it if they knew it wouldn't be able to run iOS 7? The people who bought one were left without support in less than a year. Then they discontinued the 4th generation, only to replace it with a back camera-less iPod that many complained about. Why did they continue selling the iPad 2 when the iPad Air was released, only to be replaced with the iPad 4 a few months later? Why did they release an 8GB iPhone 5c, or what many would say a crippled entry-level Mac Mini? And there was really no reason why they couldn't have included an A8 chip in the iPad Mini 3, or at least lower the price to $349. And why did they not discontinue the iPad Mini? It's the only time Apple has sold three iPad models of the same category at the same time. They want people to buy an iPad Mini 2 for $50 more. Do you agree with any of these?
I think they did differentiate the iPhone 6 and 6+ enough that many are forced to buy the 6+. Some people need the much better battery life, and I've heard many that chose the 6+ for that reason alone, even though they preferred the smaller size. Also, there are photography professionals who wanted to buy the iPhone 6 but are forced to buy the 6+ because it's the only one with optical image stabilization. And they wouldn't have added those features to the iPad Mini first, since they want to sell the bigger iPad because it has higher margins. They realized that many went with the iPad Mini 2 instead of the iPad Air because they were pretty much identical. I'm sorry if I annoyed you, but there are lots of examples of Apple wanting customers to buy the more expensive items, and the ones I mentioned are only the recent ones.
'want' us to buy the more expensive item. If that was the case, why would they not make much difference between two iPhones, and persuade people to buy the bigger one? They keep saying that they put the customer first, and yes, I believe them. I'm not saying that they don't care about making money. They do a lot. But I think the only case where they made a cheaper product completely inferior was when they made the Mini 3, and they were working on so many things then that they could only really work on one iPad, and are they really going to do all the great iPad Air 2 stuff to the Mini and just add Touch ID to the Air? Don't think so.
