"This isn’t a matter of Apple dropping the price because the components got cheaper and costs went down, which is what’s been the case in the past: this is Apple RAISING the initial price because they wanted to get as much money as possible from the people who were by and large their biggest supporters to begin with."

Or, uh, because they wanted to control demand.

Remember how the iPhone was pretty hard to get for the first month or so? Sure, it wasn't impossible like the Wii still is, but you still had to check online and get to the store early. How much worse would that have been if it was $399 instead of $599?

Economic theory tells us that one of the main effects of increasing a product's price is to reduce the quantity of the product demanded. By selling at an inflated price to begin with, Apple controlled demand so that it would stay at a reasonable level. Maybe if more products were sold this way, product launches wouldn't be the uncontrolled frenzies they so often are today.