I'd agree that an m1 chip can probably continue to run modern macOS for a very long time, and they will likely drop support for it much earlier than they would need to.

That said it was on the very high side of valuation. My agent told me if the first appraisal wasn't enough to cover the purchase price, we would just get another appraisal. The first appraisal went fine, compared to other properties it was within range of reasonable so they approved it and the mortgage went through without issue.

Also, who is really the market for an ipad pro. The average consumer is going to want a cheap ipad model for media and game consumption on the go. Ipad pro is for creatives or tech enthusiasts with disposable income; in either scenario, owning both ipad and Macbook is fairly likely, and they do work well as complementary devices.

I'm still using a 2018 ipad pro. it has the modern design and modern keyboard and flies through everything. I use it to look at slack sometimes. It's pretty pointless to me as primarily a macbook user and I don't see any reason whatsoever to upgrade it.

During this time range they substantially expanded, including massive Amazon Fresh grocery stores that also offered the just walk out tech. These each would have required model improvements and additional training, meaning they need to keep some amount of human staff on hand. Sure, you can argue this is misleading marketing, but its still a pretty impressive achievement.

In general, housing policy affects supply, and market forces decide the prices. Notably increasing supply doesn't always lower prices as demand is elastic.

You can look at Kiara, Onni SLU for examples of how this works, just go to floorplans and all the prices are in the open