My thoughts why people love Apple:
1. Brand/Marketing - Over the years Apple has built up a brand which is considered cool.
2. Easy to use - Though there is less ability to customize, it is much easier for a beginner to use.
3. Though specs are low, Apple uses higher quality internal parts. (Which tend to last longer)
4. Design - Apple products are usually very sexy.
Why they can get away with the price? There is no other company that sells Mac/iOS/iTunes devises, so they can charge as much as they want for their products. Since any electronics company can sell a Windows/Android based product they have to compete with each other for the same business. If only Sony sold Android based products and only HP sold Windows based products they could charge a lot more and the resale on your devise would be higher.
