(Reuters) - Apple Inc cut the price on the base version of its 13-inch MacBook Pro laptop with "retina" display by $200 as it revamps its top-end laptops, weeks after the company reported a steep decline in Mac sales in the holiday quarter.

Investors have worried that Apple's iPad is cannibalizing its Mac range, but Chief Executive Tim Cook has brushed aside these concerns.

The company sold 4.1 million Macs in the December quarter, down 21 percent from a year earlier.

Apple also missed Wall Street's revenue forecast for the third straight quarter in January after iPhone sales came in below expectations, fanning fears that its dominance of consumer electronics is slipping.

The iPhone maker said on Wednesday the base version of the MacBook Pro with retina display will now be priced at $1,499, and introduced a new 2.6 gigahertz processor, 256 gigabytes flash memory version for $1,699.

Apple also lowered the price of its 13-inch MacBook Air laptop with 256 gigabytes of flash memory to $1,299 from $1,399.

The company upgraded its 15-inch MacBook Pro with a faster 2.4 gigahertz quad-core processor and the top-end 15-inch notebook with a new 2.7 gigahertz quad-core processor and 16GB of memory.

Apple shares were down 0.6 percent at $465 in early trading on theNasdaq. (Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/13/us-apple-macbookpro-idUSBRE91C0V320130213

No interest in PC news? Or did i use the wrong discussion category when creating this thread? :S

Just goes to show you how much money they make on their products. The fact that they can just arbitrarily decide to slash prices by $200 or so shows how high of a profit margin they have.

While I completely despise Apple, mostly because of the cult like popularity and following they have, and how much they rip consumers off I cant ever believe the notion that people are saying about apple being dead. Its not true. Apple will continue to innovate and once investors get their expectations for profits inline with what is truely sustainable their shares will rise again.

Thank goodness, their prices for MacBooks are ridiculous... even though I have one. :P

Overpricing your products in not a good business practise. It's not that much different than theft. I mean making a profit is fine and dandy, but not when you try to overdo it. That's how i see it at least and thank God a lot of others with me as well.

And you're right Apple is not dying, i think they'll easily stay relevant for the next 7, 8 years. They are in decline though and the growth they were experiencing will not continue for much longer.

Wow didn't know how expensive they were before, but even after the $200 price cut they are still way too expensive

I mean freaking $1300 for 13" laptop. Rediculous.

Especially for the specs you're getting. If I was gonna pay that much for a laptop, I may as well get an Alienware or one of those Asus Republic of Gamer laptops.

It's not "overpriced" when people that buy the products are fine with the price. Apple is not forcing anybody to buy their products, if someone doesn't want a Macbook, they have plenty of other products to choose from.

Apple wasn't even able to keep up with demand for 4 of their major product lines in the last quarter.  If you can't make enough to meet demand, it's clearly not overpriced and it would be an insane business practice to charge any less.  That's Business 101.

The main reason why Apple computers sell is because of the cult like following they have amassed. The vast majority of people that use them only do so because it is the "IN" thing. The majority of them do no editing of music or videos or nothing in the artsy realm and thus are overpaying for their computer experience. Its really too bad as a PC of equal specs would cost less than half of what a macbook costs. If only these people who think apple is soo amazing were a bit more tech savvy they would realize that with some modifications you can boot OSX onto a PC.