We have a couple iPads in our house, and I find myself resentful of the price to upgrade, so we haven't. The competitors are nearly as good, and cost half as much. The price points for more memory in particular outrages me. Why is anyone shipping a premium tablet starting at 16 GB of non-upgradeable storage these days!? How can you justify another $100 just to get to 32 GB?! 64 GB should be the starting point for tablets in Apple's target premium price range.
Earlier on I could understand the premium price, as the competition was simply nowhere near the polish and functionality. But the extra bells and whistles Apple has added just are not keeping pace compared to the premium they are still charging.
I long ago realized I was not in their target demographic for phone and PC sales, and now I think my next tablet is not likely to be an Apple one. Somehow they feel they are exempt from following the steady march downwards of electronics prices.
Heck I'd even be interested in shelling out extra for an iMac, but every time I check they are still not upgradeable, and come with rather underwhelming processors/memory/GPU considering the extreme markup.
Oh well.
You are correct, you are not their target-demographic.
Their target-demographic doesn't even know what a GPU ist (or like myself, doesn't game at all and thus it doesn't matter as long as it can drive a 30" display).
But the number of people like you is actually decreasing. That's why Samsung has trouble making their numbers every quarter: the top-product they sell appears attractive only to a small number of people (geeks, people who like to tinker).
They can sell a lot of products that don't make much money, though - to people who are unlikely to spend further money.
I've got technically savvy co-workers who have disabled even the finger-print scanner on their iPhone 5S - simply because they don't want to have the slight delay.
Do you think Samsung can sell those people a phone with all those pseudo-features like eye-tracking and what else they built into their everything-and-the-kitchen-sink model?
Apple is still the king in the "less is more"-department, simply by guessing correctly the stuff people really don't want to have.
That said, I have an iPhone 4S and I've got trouble justifying the expense that is an iPhone 5S - but then, people spend much more on cars and motorbikes that depreciate to near zero after 10 years. And an iPhone is good for at least four years of solid use, if you take care of it well.
If people think Android is better value for money, they might actually be correct - but only for their definition of value.