Interestingly, the Newton was pretty cheap for its time: released for $900 ($1,844.29 in inflation-adjusted terms). IIRC the original price was supposed to be much higher, but at the last second it was cut lower.
Most first-in-kind technology is usually quite expensive[1] (especially during the 80s/90s era), but Apple has frequently been able to release innovative products (relatively) cheaply, as far as I can tell.