~2012 was the same thing. The usd was very low compared to eur, but the apple store sold things in ~same value in eur + tax. So you could legit buy an airplane ticket (not even a low cost, regular line was ok), visit NY for a weekend and buy a macbook, come back, and end up paying the same amount.

Not just Apple. Around 2010, I bought a tripod and head from the US. Had it delivered to France, paid all import duties and taxes and VAT (I single out VAT because, since taxing is the national sport, it's levied on top of the other taxes, which are also levied on shipping a big hunk of metal). It was around 25% cheaper than buying from a local store.

Here's the kicker: the tripod and head were both produced in Italy. So it was somehow cheaper to ship them halfway around the world and pay import duties twice than to buy locally with no import duty (since it's the EU).

yeah, this applied to any pricier laptop or DSLR, though warranty could be a problem