Plasma TVs do it to me also. It used to drive me nuts to go into a Best Buy and look at a wall of plasma TVs.
Looking up the retina displays, I see they are either IPS or OLED. The IPS likely has an LED backlight, and OLED is...LED. So a flicker is possible if they used PWM to limit the current to the LEDs.
Did you notice any change in the effect at different brightness levels?