Their advertisements are effective enough to get people to pay double of what the products are worth.
Advertising, when done right, works. Not many companies advertise properly. Apple does. You and I don't fall for their bullshit but everyone else does.
And how many people have shitty luck with a $500 hp/dell/acer laptop, then go on to buy a $1500 macbook pro next and think WOW THIS IS AMAZING! Totally worth the Apple tax!!
If they would have spent $1500 on a laptop in the first place....
And the iphones are more expensive than they should be but they are the best selling smartphone. Hell they should charge even more, people will still buy it anyways. Hell they haven't even changed the boring OS or UI since the original iPhone how many years ago? They just keep adding small features to keep it almost relevant compared to android that has much matured recently and the gap is gonna be even more tremendous with time.
But when they add a feature, like panoramic photos with iOS 6, they advertise the shit out of it. How many people knew that was standard in Android 4.0? Not many. How many people knew about android pull down notifications when apple added it for iOS5? Only people with android phones already. That's the thing, the android phone manufactures don't advertise properly. FINALLY Samsung is advertising the features of the galaxy S3, and voila, best selling android phone yet. HTC's ad for the One series had absolutely nothing to do with the phone or it's features, and their market share is falling. People don't even know what the one X is!
I should be in marketing. Shit is too easy :blarg:. Show features of phone, show what it can do. Show the customers what the iPhone doesn't have (yet). This is why apple sells their crap for more than it's worth, it's perceived as better.