I think you are reading too much into it.
Here is a few things I'll address to keep the next responses short:
Thank you. Thank will be really useful. I was taking too long writing those answers.
1) The 2010 MacBook Air was a redesign, or... you can actually call it a new line of MacBook. So Apple priced it appropriately to faze out the old "MacBook" (white) model. They created a new line of computer to replace an old one. They didn't "drop" the price of the Air.
Agree to a certain extent. It depends on your point of view.
The MacBook Air replaced the 'MacBook' line of computers. But not exactly. The white MacBook was similar to the lower-end 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the difference was mainly that it was made of polycarbonate instead of aluminium. It had a standard-voltage Intel processor, a 13" screen, a 5,400 RPM HD and an optical drive. Then Apple discontinues this product in favor of an 11-inch laptop with a low-voltage processor, an SSD drive (which is much faster but has only 64 GB of storage) and no optical drive. They are hardly interchengeable.
People who relied on the white MacBook could instead buy a MacBook Air for the same price or a MacBook Pro for US$ 200 more. I guess most of them opted for the second choice, given that the 13-inch lower-end MacBook Pro is Apple's most popular computer nowadays.
2) Processor upgrades from one generation to the next is inevitable, but if you go out and check the specs of similarly configured competitors (from HP, Sony, Dell, etc...), you'll see that they either have much lower price point, or much better specs (even resolution), of the same generation. That shows Apple doesn't give a damn what the competition does as long as they can sell their computers. This is also the reason why a Retina Display on the MacBook Air is unlikely.
I know that processor upgrades are inevitable. But Apple gave an additional bump to these upgrades. Apple used to put lower-end processors of their generations, and now it is using processors which rank higher.
The sucessor to the Core 2 Duo P7350 2 GHz is probably the Core i3-3110M 2.4 GHz. Both are the lowest-end of their generation.
And the successor to the Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4 GHz (priced US$ 241) is probably the Core i5-3660M 2.8 GHz (priced US$ 266). Both have similar prices.
Instead, Apple decided to put higher end processors inside the 13-inch laptops. Apple incurs additional costs in doing that, but the price of the 13-inch laptops has dropped US$ 100 since then.
Apple's MacBook Pro is still overpriced. But you can't find too many laptops with a Core i7-3520M processor sold for a much lower price. And that's because this processor alone costs US$ 346.
3) If Apple introduces a new device with a high price tag, then that isn't like they are increasing the price of anything... since that thing never existed before! You can't say it's a $600 increase when there was never a rMBP 13" on the market.
That is true. But the fact is that these products are still marketed as "MacBook Pro". So, while customers perceive an increase in the quality of the product, they also perceive a signficant raise in the price.
There are lots of customers out there, and they have different criteria to choose their machines. Some will buy a Mac, cost what may. Others will buy a cheaper Mac if the 13-inch MacBook Pro gets too expensive. And others may just give up buying a Mac and buy a Windows computer instead.
There are consumers who don't even know what is an SSD drive. These consumers will hardly compare the specifications of a MacBook Pro with those of other vendors to conclude that the Mac is overpriced. But they may find a US$ 1,799 13-inch MacBook Pro too expensive and they may find that the 1,199 13-inch MacBook Air is not exactly what they need.
There will be lots of Windows laptops just waiting for these consumers. Will Apple allow that?
4) Like you said, Apple knows people will buy a $1799 laptop over a $2199 one, so... that's the sole reason why it makes sense for them to price the rMBP 13" at that level.
What about the very attractive US$ 1,199 price tag? Will Apple leave that to the MacBook Air? Not everybody is willing to give up a Pro and get an Air instead.
Of course Apple would love to charge one billion dollars for a retina MacBook Pro. But the fact is that people won't buy one of those.
5) Regarding the $100 price drop (on the 13" MBP), the reality is that... it's not a price drop at all. $1299 back then is just about equal to $1199 now due to the economy scaling itself. Perhaps they'll drop the price of the 15" rMBP by $100 eventually, but that doesn't mean they'll go out of their way to do a $400 price cut or $500 price cut.
Probably SSDs got cheaper, so Apple could drop the prices of MacBook Airs.
Honestly, I'm all for the rMBP 13", but I think the expectation for them to be cheap is just wishful thinking. Maybe it'll be cheaper than $1799, but I don't think it'll be cheaper by much.
I think it will be more expensive than US$ 1,199, but cheaper than US$ 1,799. Something in-between. I guessed US$ 1,499, which is already very expensive for a laptop this size.
If you find the price tag too high, then by all means, get a PC computer. I'd actually recommend a PC laptop to anyone on a budget myself.
Well, my situation is a little bit different. It's not that I'm on a budget. I'm not. I'll happily pay US$ 2,199 or even US$ 2,799 for a good laptop. I am willing to spend even more than that. I could eve pay US$ 3,749, which is the amount the 15-inch MacBook Pro with a retina display maxed out costs in the US.
But the fact is that I live in Brazil and prices here are sky high due to heavy taxes and inefficiency. In Brazil, laptops cost more than double what they cost in the US.
The low-end 15-inch retina MacBook Pro (the US$ 2,199 model) costs US$ 4,900 here, and the higher-end (the 2,799 model) costs US$ 6,200. I don't know a single person who actually has one, because it is indeed über-expensive. I'm not buying a laptop at this price point. I just can't justify it.
The low-end 13-inch MacBook Air (that runs for US$ 1,199) costs US$ 2,500 here, and that's some money. I would be willing to pay even more than that for a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a retina display. If it costs the same as the current top-range 13-inch MacBook Pro (which runs for US$ 1,499 in the US), it will cost US$ 3,000, and I will still pay the price.
However, if Apple keeps pushing prices up, I'll just give up and buy a PC instead. I can't afford paying so much for a laptop. Especially living in a city such as Sao Paulo, where the risk of having my laptop stolen is very high.
If Apple is by any means eyeing international markets, it should be conscious that prices elsewhere are higher than in the US. Perhaps prices are not so high as here in Brazil (which has the world's most expensive laptops), but they are higher. If Apple pushes too far, European customers, for instance, may well give up a transition to the Mac.
While people may see that as being "snobbish", I consider that being "realistic". Apple makes good computers, and they can ask a premium for these computers because what they have crammed in (high resolution IPS display, quad-core processor, ample RAM, dedicated graphics, etc... in a light and thin all aluminum body) justifies the price tag for people who can afford it. They don't make computers to race with other manufacturers. That has never been the case at all. I don't see how they should start now. A lot of people (19 out of 20 from my last count) buy PCs instead of Mac computers all the time. That has never put a dent in Apple's business, and they have grown well thus far.
Indeed, Apple doesn't make computers to race with other manufacturers. But that's true to a certain extent. If Coca-Cola begins charging too much for its products, people will start buying Pepsi instead.
Apple may charge what it wants. But people - even the most fanatic Mac evangelists - still have budgets.
