Parowdy
Suspended
Eager to read the comments of the people that disagree.
First thing I notice is that I know none of these forum members so I don’t have hope there’ll be any noteworthy attempts to defend their ground but lets see.
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Apple Explains Why It Raised Prices on 14 Products Today
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First thing I notice is that I know none of these forum members so I don’t have hope there’ll be any noteworthy attempts to defend their ground but lets see.
Parowdy
Suspended
What do you think how Apple makes all that money? By outsourcing production and not having to produce much of anything themselves.
Samsung can produce because that’s what they did for a long time and even without smartphone vendors like Apple they have contractors in the military and whatnot so they wouldnt have to worry anyway.
Same with Google, they dont make phones. They make a search engine and inline services ces and also happen to make phones.
but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac...
[...if we are to maintain profit margins and increase executive salaries, Apple added behind close doors.]
It'll take years, maybe a decade before the AI shortage isn't a problem. Welcome to the New Normal. Prices going down will be limited to Apple sales. Oh wait. Apple having sales is almost non-existent. So it's up to third-party sellers to offer sales, with will still be more expensive than distant 2026 pricing. Inflation, tariffs, who knows.
Given that Apple has raised prices even on refurbs, products that were sold with old RAM and other prices, not to mention stock on shelves with components not built at AI RAM and other component prices, Welcom to the New Normal.
[...if we are to maintain profit margins and increase executive salaries, Apple added behind close doors.]
It'll take years, maybe a decade before the AI shortage isn't a problem. Welcome to the New Normal. Prices going down will be limited to Apple sales. Oh wait. Apple having sales is almost non-existent. So it's up to third-party sellers to offer sales, with will still be more expensive than distant 2026 pricing. Inflation, tariffs, who knows.
Given that Apple has raised prices even on refurbs, products that were sold with old RAM and other prices, not to mention stock on shelves with components not built at AI RAM and other component prices, Welcom to the New Normal.
kyykesko
macrumors 6502
I doubt it'll be much of a hit with 3ke+ phones in the lineup. Been waiting for the next versions to finally upgrade. Not going to bother now. Same with laptop upgrade. Almost pulled the trigger on a 6500e model. Today it's almost 8000e. So thanks, but no thanks. I've seen price increases with other brands, but they have been nowhere near the same level Apple did.
Parowdy
Suspended
True. But imo HAM should always cost more than RAM. Ba dum.
Yeah doesn’t make much sense as they use beef but still. 🙃
So Apple – is "forced" to fleece us. We are being fleeced. How much force is being applied to the fleecers as opposed to the fleecees is debatable. So you weigh the benefit of a purchase against the price and make a choice.
LFO8
macrumors 6502
Parowdy
Suspended
Yeah let’s forget that Apple was the only big company for many months offering reasonable laptop prices compared to the competition.
It’s not like they did cut their profit margins since last year and only now increase prices, no no.
Not if you can't eat RAM and survive.
You're correct. And beef also shouldn't cost more than RAM at today's prices.
kyykesko
macrumors 6502
There are no value adds that would justify the current pricing for me. I use my devices for work, but I can't justify paying just anything for the computers. Macbook Neo is barely worth it's price given it's (severe) limitations. For those who can use it, it's ok. It's not an option for the rest. I can't think of a 'value add' Apple could push into the Macbook Pro line that would make me pay the current prices. I'm currently on iPhone 14 Pro Max and was getting ready to swap to a new one, but apparently there's no point. My laptop is M3Pro so I can live with it for a few more years. I wouldn't have minded a new one this year to get some more oomph for local LLM use, but not enough I'd bother anymore. I'll be ok for the next 3-4 years with this one. If pricing is as mad as now still, I'll just get an used windows laptop and stick linux on it. macOS quality isn't what it used to be.
I might be wrong, but I really can't think of anything Apple could do to make me pay 8ke for my next laptop.
Parowdy
Suspended
I thought something similar. That maybe they raise prices now so the inevitable price rise of the September releases can carry over these previously established prices without any bad press.
But thinking about it, coming hardware will probably be even more expensive. Sp you’re probably right, they are just life price-laddering us on-the-go, probably been deliberate about the timing too in a way.
ProTruckDriver
Contributor
I'm glad I bought my Mac mini M4 at a cheaper price in December 2025. Hopefully this will last me up to my dirt nap. Good luck with the rising cost of computers. 😇
JTK Awesome
macrumors 6502a
Parowdy
Suspended
Uh sorry but I’m a pretty certain a product that’s literally another
Now, the fact that those prices would be unaffordable for more people than already is another issue.
Does this have anything to do with the discussion at hand? No. Did you take the joke too seriously? Maybe.
iHorseHead
macrumors 68020
This is about the grocery stores and about my local town where I live in Europe, but I heard the same thing back in 2020 when Covid was a thing.
Many restaurants said that price increases are only temporary and will subside once the Covid crisis is over. Do I really have to continue to make my point here?
I would argue the increase on specifically the Neo could almost be considered predatory considering the known target market and the fact that Apple has known since well before its release that they were going to launch this increase. It's just a complete bait-and-switch for students and educators.
staypuftforums
macrumors 6502a
Must not be a very accomplished one, because it most certainly is. Heard of a company named "Apple", by chance?
Siri Engineers Sent to AI Coding Bootcamp as Apple Prepares to Deliver Siri Overhaul
Apple is sending a large portion of its Siri engineers to a multi-week bootcamp to learn to code using AI, reports The Information. Apple's decision to teach its programmers to better use AI for coding comes just two months before Apple is expected to unveil a smarter, more capable version of...
www.macrumors.com
Yes indeed the thrill is gone... done... over!
Years of supporting this company, owning a plethora of devices, and now this.
Tired of not only this latest debacle on pricing, as there's reasonable price increases due to fluctuations in component costs and other factors. But the extent of the increase in this case is absurd.
Then factor in the shenanigans "Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max built for Apple Intelligence" and the list goes on.
It was fun while it lasted, but that party is over.
As if Apple's previous price on ram & ssd upgrades were rational lol 🤪
Apple sent its engineers working on AI to learn more about AI? I’m shocked! Shocked! Stop the presses!Must not be a very accomplished one, because it most certainly is. Heard of a company named "Apple", by chance?
Siri Engineers Sent to AI Coding Bootcamp as Apple Prepares to Deliver Siri Overhaul
Apple is sending a large portion of its Siri engineers to a multi-week bootcamp to learn to code using AI, reports The Information. Apple's decision to teach its programmers to better use AI for coding comes just two months before Apple is expected to unveil a smarter, more capable version of...
You said the majority of software today is written by AI, it’s not. It’s not even close. And I’ll be honest, the sheer amount of schlock I’ve seen churned out by AI is astounding, so the prospect of that proliferating is not something I’m looking forward to
Also I work in a compliance environment, for multiple countries, our CISO is pretty bullish about AI and even he’s been having trouble fitting it really into our regulatory frameworks in ways that would make sense.
We have some limited use of copilot now, I dutifully played with it and tbh havent found it particularly useful. It tends to produce spaghetti code.
Also my role tends to architecture design and build out for novel problems, AI is not particularly good at that. LLMS and the like are incredibly advanced pattern matching tools, in very simple terms a huge amount of greps and markov chains weighted by training on huge data sets. That makes the models decent for regurgitating something that’s approximately like something else it’s had in its datasets, but not so great at coming up with new things. That way lies hallucinations and just crazy bunk output
On other fronts the general concept of agentic coding assistants and spec driven development intrigues me as an idea - I’ve played with it on my own time, in theory it’s cool, in practice it suffers from the same problems, just multiplied.
You need to be able to trust that it will be at least as reliable and effective as tasking out some work to a few junior engineers, and bluntly the tech isnt there yet - and I’m not convinced it will ever get there (there’s also the bigger problem that if it *does* get there it breaks the pipeline of junior engineers —> seniors. You need juniors to get seniors. You still need seniors even if AI is perfect. See the problem?)
Anyway, I’d bet most software engineers have at least touched AI to see what the fuss is about, as I have, but the majority of code isnt being written by AI, not even close, and despite the pronouncements of big name tech bros that’s not changing all that quickly, if ever
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I can explain my reaction to Apple raising prices in seven letters starting with “F”.
staypuftforums
macrumors 6502a
I did not say “the majority of software today is written by AI”. I said that all software is being written, in part, by AI. There’s no major software being coded entirely by humans anymore. The hobbyist in his bedroom? Sure. Apple or Google? LOL, absolutely not.
Second, Apple did not send its engineers to “learn more about AI”. Their engineers were sent to learn about coding using AI - which they are now doing across all of their teams. Lots of reporting on Apple using coding tools like Claude Code internally.