Apple prices are what they are,
Apple, when the sell directly, very rarely discount. And when they do, it usually isn't a big discount.
they do not control what other vendors want to sell their products for. So if others want to provide bigger discounts and all that, they certainly can.
In theory that's true, but in practice it isn't. New Apple products aren't really sold based on price.
At least in the U.S., Apple isn't allowed to tell retailers what to charge legally; but Apple does what's known as "protecting their market." They do that by only allowing a very limited number of retailers, and by making sure that there is little competition among their retailers in the various channels. So, for instance, Apple will only typically sell to one big box store (Best Buy), one warehouse chain (Costco), and extremely few online retailers (bhphotovideo in the U.S.; near as I can tell, Amazon only sells refurbished Apple products).
With not a lot of competition for the same product, a retailer doesn't have to give deep discounts to attract customers. Retailers understand this arrangement, and like it because it means that they will make a good profit on each item sold, and have high numbers of sales too. They also understand that if they (the retailers) discount things too deeply, that Apple will cut them loose.
That's why you won't see any huge discounts on Apple products, like you would for just about all the other brands of PC's. Those other brands will sell to just about any retailer, which causes competition and downward price pressure. Apple won't allow that. The upside is that it allows Apple to be able to afford to keep quality high. Other PC manufacturers are forced to cut costs to the bone, which impacts quality.
Sure, retailers like BestBuy and CostCo can sell Macs for like $100 or $150 off, which makes it look like they are discounting. (And that does make them a bit more attractive to purchase from than directly from Apple.) But that's all baked into their business model. They're not going to discount beyond that, and they aren't going to get into any kind of competition with any other retailers.
One other thing that Apple does. They legally aren't allowed to tell retailers what price they can sell things at. But they AREN'T prohibited from contracting with their retailers about what price their retailers can *advertise* their products for. (These are called MAP contracts. Minimum Advertised Price.) Apple sets prices that way. Most retailers won't bother to lower prices exceptionally in-store if they can't advertise those discounted prices to draw in customers.
