Playing the "Steve would never have done this" game is always dangerous, but in the past apple has been much more focused on having obvious product differentiators.
I think Tim tries to extract all the possible pennies from the supply chain possible. In a vacuum it's a responsible way to run a business, but it has left apple selling some products they should be ashamed to feature and customers unsure which product is built for their needs. When apple sells old iphones more cheaply the number in the name gives people an clear indication they are trading price for newness. The mac line is a confusing mess of exactly what you get when you put down hard earned money.
It's a weird combination of some devices with touch id, how many usb-c you get and whether the usb-c port is also tb3 or not. For those really out of the loop what the hell a touchbar is. The fact every laptop apple makes is thin, light and retina doesn't help.
For something as core to the experience as touch id it really should have triggered across the board refreshes, but apple seems interested only in substantial updates (though I would certainly consider the addition of touch id very substantial).
There is a lot to be said for shipping incremental updates on a regular basis so customers know the expensive product they spend their money on is being given attention. I don't need each revision to blow me away and every customer might not buy every refresh, but every time a product is refreshed it's a strong indicator if I buy this product it will continue to see investment. When it is time for me to put down my hard earned money I can be confident I'm getting good value and not missing some key improvement that is available but not on this particular line yet.
I'm experiencing this problem with ipad mini right now. Adore my ipad mini. Adored the 1st one. 2nd one was a huge upgrade so got that. 3rd and 4th didn't justify the cost, but now that my mini 2 is really showing age buying a 4 doesn't offer very good value when it's unchanged for 3 years. There are finally rumours a new one might be coming, but when? Do I move to a different size class (that I don't really like)? Continue to stick it out for a product I have no reason to believe apple intends to continue developing?
