The below is not a scientific opinion. But it is an opinion.
Apple is 100% milking the buyer in a way the lower end Android chain just isn't in the business of.
People don't not buy top flight iPhones because something else is worse, it's because they 1) can't afford it (priced out) or don't "know" better (don't have an appreciation for just how great the experience is).
Maybe, a top flight Apple experience really is 10x a lower end Android experience.
First, it's the fact that everything has a decent (if by now overbearing) design language and everything (more or less) just works and fits in the Apple ecosystem, and the momentum to date has meant the feature set and 3rd party app offering is pretty darn good (Anrdoid may have great hardware and an equivalent feature-set in software, but is it as consistent and polished or truly well-designed overall?).
Second, it's the fact that there are no good alternatives. Sorry, but the Android ecosystem is not good enough. Not close, not second best, just a non starter, for Apple acolytes.
Third, there is no serious competition. Ok, there are oddball more independent offerings, but let's be real. They are nowhere near as polished.
Therefore, nothing much is really pushing top flight Apple prices down other than people's ability to pay. Because enough "experiences" have been pushed to mobile by now, it's sort of a necessity to have something to answer that need.
Maybe, someone, somewhere, could make a serious competitor to iPhone. It is 100% possible. But it does not seem to be done now.
And so, the price is what Apple has figured out people are able to pay in order to maximize overall corporate profit.
Is it worth it? Well, if it enables serious business, then, yes, best Apple phone and best apple laptop are worth it, easily.
The problem is this (best iPhone) became the stack for mobile when things (capabilities all around, specs, and prices) were more middling, and it's hard for such people to go to Android. And it's hard to juggernaut into serious competition in the particularly highly complex technical space because of the hardware and software investments made in the past couple of decades that have really built up. (When iPhone started it didn't have copy/paste, but look at the over-complexity now.)