Apple Pricing and Value

With the Apple portable family now complete I have a few open questions. Maybe you can help or guide me through. One of the reasons, or at a minimum benefits, of transitioning to Intel was that it would make more chips available and ultimately reduce cost to manufacture. Now I can understand that those costs have yet to be realized by Apple, let alone the consumer, but how can Apple make no movement on price what-so-ever? I’ve always hated the fact that with each upgrade the baby is thrown out, and they never create a cheaper version, something hobbled entry -level.

So what has Apple improved? A bell or whistle here or there, but overall nothing compelling. Apple has done a great job building demand and floating on the “wow windows on a my mac” wave, and I’m sure that’s brought in customers. And existing users are upgrading to the new line because, well because you have to not because you want to. In the big picture, Apple in the past 3-4 years has made no daring leaps in laptop/desktop design. Now I know there are bits (isight, magnet craziness, glossy screens) but overall the design is stagnant. They seem to be spending more time on retail store design than on hardware - ipod not included. Although we all know those ipod designs come from creative anyway. Black is something Apple used to produce, and without the $200 premium charge and not something to really jump up and down about.

So what do I want, since I seem to be such an expert….glad you asked.
1. Thinner version of something - less power is fine, just make a lighter, thinner, ultraportable
2. A real battery life, anything that will allow me to work for more than 90 minutes untethered
3. Heat control - again maybe a little less power to keep from carrying around a furnace
4. Dockability…what a crazy idea…I think it’s awful that Apple doesn’t provide any support for this

Anyone agree? Disagree? What would you like to see?