Apple

Apple today dropped the prices in its line of MacBook Pro laptops with Retina display while boosting processor speeds.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina now starts $1,499, or $200 less than before. The higher-capacity 256GB version costs $1,699, or $300 cheaper than the original price. The processor clock speed also gets boosted to 2.6 gigahertz from 2.5GHz.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina gets a speed boost, with the lower-end version getting its clock speed bumped up to 2.4GHz from 2.3GHz, and the higher-end version getting bumped up to 2.7GHz quad-core processor from 2.6GHz, as well as double the RAM at 16 gigabytes.

The line of MacBook Pros with Retina displays have always been a higher-end item that fewer consumers could buy. The starting 13-inch MacBook Pro is significantly less at $1,199. With its own iPad sales cutting into Mac revenue, Apple is likely looking to goose interest with a minor price cut and spec upgrade.

Apple also cut the price of its high-end MacBook Air . The 256GB version now costs $1,399, or $100 less than the previous price.

The prices have yet to take effect on Apple's Web site, but will change later today.