Maybe it's more they're limiting how many they make in order to make it seem like they're selling more. It's not like they've ever done that before, or anything, right?
No mostly (or ever) they haven't done that before. That would be stupidly expensive for almost no benefit. The numbers will be out in July. Apple is going to want April-June sales to be high not low when they release numbers.
As for hatred, I don't think your comments sounded like you are hating Apple. I just don't think you understand the product line and how Apple is evolving it. Like I said above look at how the Air evolved 2008-2011 that's the pattern they likely follow. The need to get the weight down to make the advantages of OSX for battery life clear, they need to get retina and they need to not lose the $800 price point on the low end. They can't do all those things at once so they have forking lines.
What you're seeing now is the last of Steve's momentum
I don't see that. What I've seen from Apple for the last 6 years or so has been a shift towards massive innovations in manufacturing and logistics and a move away from a focus on "insanely great" software. Manufacturing and logistics is Tim Cook's baby. The 2015 MacBook may not be your or my cup of tea, but I can unquestionably say its the most complex laptop to manufacture on the market today bar none. I can't really think of much that's even close to that level of complexity. The Microsoft Surface 1, and the Chrome Books are about the only product I can think of that's pushing the envelope in manufacturing even close to the degree Apple is.
As far as being useful. In a world in which PC sales have been slipping for 6 years they have grown their sales. The results on marketshare are pretty good. http://cdn.macrumors.com/artic... That graph is the unit numbers. The ASP gap has been growing till it is approaching almost 3x what it is for PCs, and of course in terms of margin Apple has consistently pulled 85-92% of the margin from PCs sales for many years running.
They aren't failing to be useful they are exceptionally useful to end users. That doesn't mean they fit everyone.