Some see Apple’s status as a premium brand as an important feature of the company, and claim that spitting their efforts between high-end and low-end devices is going to harm them in both areas. Obviously, Apple are going to need to devote more development resources in that case, but they could always expand instead of straining their existing teams; they are a company with the resources for that.
In any case, Apple seem to have a good grip of their position on the market, and they aren’t going to let their popularity slip away that easily. The company has gone through some ups and downs over the years, but ultimately they’ve managed to prevail.
The kind of strong competition that Samsung are giving them with the Galaxy Note 7 is likely going to be a positive factor in the long term too, as it should push Apple to experiment more.
That’s one point on which most of their fans and critics seem to agree – that Apple have become a bit too complacent with their position on the market lately, and they aren’t doing any more crazy innovations like they used to in the past. Those kinds of experiments are what allowed Apple to establish their reputation in the first place, so we can understand the frustration of fans, but we never know what they might be planning for their next release behind the scenes.