Apple's been cutting back. They also don't include any DP to DVI/VGA adaptors on the new macbook airs where as the first generation did include both adaptors.
They'll do anything to cut costs and keep those margins higher.
I would say its kind of silent price increase. Yeah the prices stay the same on the website, but now you have to spend more to get the same set up you got before.
I do agree, most people don't use remotes, but I happen to use it all the time. It especially comes in handy for doing Keynote presentations which I do often enough.
I wonder what they'll strip out on their next round of cost cutting. I wouldn't be surprised if they stopped providing restore CDs + printed manuals and instead did the whole built-in partition + program to make your own thing that most PC manufacturers have been doing for years (with a PDF manual on the computer). After all, $2 to make a restore CD kit + printed manual and inserting it into every computer would save them a million dollars every time they shipped 500,000 units.
