Apple Just Increased Prices on MacBooks, iPads, and More

[Fumblerooskie]

The commenters who are criticizing Apple for raising prices on existing inventory are ignoring basic consumer behavior, including refurbs and products that are close to sunset. When Apple, who can no longer command access to memory due to its volume, has to raise prices, it’s an ominous sign for the larger economy.

The price increases are difficult given the economic situation for most, but it’s a signal that any industry that depends upon memory is being slammed by chip production limitations. It’s not likely to subside during this decade. If you want to hedge, then buy shares of the chip fabricators. Otherwise, sit tight and take care of your current hardware.

 

[robegian]

Prices are up mostly for scarcity due to AI's hunger for hardware, but also Trump's tariffs and Trump's war in Iran (dishonourably lost, by the way) contributed, at least for accelerating the timing. Americans put the entire world economy in havoc.

 

[Dreamail]

I was ready to by a new M5 (or M6) Studio, but not at that price.

I had just about saved up enough to buy a new higher end M5 MacBook Pro.
Though I felt that waiting to see what the MacBook Ultra can do would be a good idea as I do not really urgently need a new MacBook yet. I can wait another 1/2 year.

But now, with the 50% price hike, I would probably need to save up a whole extra year or even two before I can even afford a similar higher end MacBook Pro. Let alone a MacBook Ultra... 🫣 🤣


Something tells me that the juice is just not worth the squeeze anymore, to be honest.
Perhaps a complete change of course will be a better solution!

Resolving the computing needs some other way and spend the whole saved up money not on any Apple product anymore but something completely different. Perhaps a nice bike or some home improvements.


I know this is all not necessarily just Apple's fault - though they probably could have prepared even better, considering that they think of themselves as the kings of the supply chain...
They had so much cash, perhaps they should have made longer prepaid contracts two years back...
It's not that it wasn't obvious that AI would start to boom at some point.


Yet with the economy being shaky, people getting skittish on expenses, raising all prices through the roof - even if everyone is doing it - will just not bode well for the whole PC industry in general.
People will start doing their computing needs on mobile phones or keep their older hardware.
I bet the PC market will shrink dramatically over the next 12 months.

Apple might get forced to support older macOS versions for many more years - as people simply cannot afford to upgrade anymore. Not everyone can get by with a MacBook Neo. Some people need more computing power - but if they are now priced out of that market? What can people do?

I can see a lot of long-term issues coming up from this...
Looking back, one day we might see that today was the turning point for Apple.


Bye-bye Apple!
Was nice knowing you...

 

[Macalicious2011]

Heck of a way to clear out inventory can not wait to see what M6 products will cost.

At this point I am not interested in a rumoured macbook pro with touch screen and oled screen.

Imagine that with 2tb storage and 64gb ram.

 

[JosephAW]

In other news for some strange reason Apple cannot figure out why people are not buying the latest tech but hanging onto their ancient hardware.
Apple is looking to alleviate this problem by discontinuing software for devices older than a year and installing a Killswitch so they must be recycled. 😵

 

[maflynn]

All I can say is that I'm really happy that I took the plunge in getting my M4 Studio last year. I had priced out PCs at Microcenter, and I just couldn't justify the pricing, where as at the time the M4 Max Studio was on sale there. I took the plunge and so happy, its been a great computer to use.

 

[Kriss_De_Valnor]

Not gonna happen.

It may. MS already admitted that Windows 11 is a way too AI and they *promised* they will deliver a slimmer and faster Windows build by the end of this year. Windows 11 feedback is not great and MS does feel it. People are already fed up with this Copilot AI you can see everywhere in Windows 11.

 

[maxoakland]

Delusional to think that these aren’t actually a result of component cost increases like Apple has repeatedly said.

It’s both. Component costs rose but Apple is taking advantage of that and increasing prices significantly more than the components cost rose

 

[maflynn]

In other news for some strange reason Apple cannot figure out why people are not buying the latest tech but hanging onto their ancient hardware.

There's a word for that - Price elasticity of demand
The higher the price the lower the demand

 

[Fumblerooskie]

AI continues to ruin everything. Is there a technology that was worse in history? (Obviously excluding weapons)

What? Elon tells us that we’re all going to sit at home while AI makes us all millionaires.

 

[Ethosik]

How much is a RTX 5090 going for right now? I see roughly five grand USD on average.

At least the AI overlords that are driving up memory prices will also eliminate our jobs. So we’ve got that going for us.

I was able to snag one just $2,600

 

[daran0815]

The speculative AI buildout is going to make for a bleak few years economically.

Given that the AI is supposedly going to be paid for by essentially replacing well paying human jobs, the economic drop may well be lasting. Or it implodes as enough notice that operating these things are not in the public interest and need some harsh regulations. Hard to tell. Public opinion is certainly against most uses of AI, but even in a democracy that is surprisingly insufficient to stop it.

 

[Fumblerooskie]

In other news for some strange reason Apple cannot figure out why people are not buying the latest tech but hanging onto their ancient hardware.
Apple is looking to alleviate this problem by discontinuing software for devices older than a year and installing a Killswitch so they must be recycled. 😵

LOL. Apple knows exactly how the price hikes are going to affect demand. So does the equities market.

No corporation is going to use a kill switch, that’s silly. AI is a different matter, don’t give it any ideas about terminating we annoying humans.

 

[Matt2012]

Still cheaper to get PCs than Mac’s. This will probably be the end for me with Mac’s since I can still build a good PC even with a 5090 that is cheaper to the Mac Studio I was hoping for and will still perform better.

And you can buy that pc now and have been able too for the last 18 months. In the meantime, many thought the m5 studio ultra would be released when the m3/m4 studios were disappointing released. Here we are in nearly July 26 and that’s still the best apple desktop, money no object, you can buy (if you can find one).
It’s the usual story with Apple, when they finally release there ‘killer’ desktop, it’s almost always behind the latest nvidia cards by a gen or two very swiftly

 

[BSDnostalgia]

I am not buying subscriptions. The day Adobe introduced subscriptions was the last day I was using Lightroom. Now I am very happy with a standalone alternative.

What is your favorite alternative to Lightroom?

 

[adrianlondon]

Great news!

I have an iPhone 11 with a smashed screen. Yours for $400. Quick. I'll raise it to $450 tomorrow.

 

[egdiroh]

It hasn't changed since it came out, I think 5 years ago? That is a joke.

Clearly they are setting the stage for new products in the fall and not wanting the new products to be more expensive.

 

[MrGunny94]

MacBook Ultra prices are gonna be crazy..

Oh well time to start closing tabs on my M2 Pro and hope for the best

 

[BSDnostalgia]

Given that the AI is supposedly going to be paid for by essentially replacing well paying human jobs, the economic drop may well be lasting.

Recent family member experience with AI bots replacing human customer service. Companies used to not trust low-level humans to authorize things that cost money. Now, companies don't trust AI-bots to authorize things that cost money, but, there is no way to ask for a supervisor.

 

[MontgomeryG]

Stocks go on a tear when jobs get cut too.

What's good for megacorp ≠ good for normal people (you and me).

That's not the point. They're not going out of business. And you should invest if possible because the markets are pretty good atm. It's a gamble but over the long haul, not a bad one.

 

[Ishimura]

RIP is from requiescat in pace, latin for rest in peace.

You don't say.

 

[MontgomeryG]

The commenters who are criticizing Apple for raising prices on existing inventory are ignoring basic consumer behavior, including refurbs and products that are close to sunset. When Apple, who can no longer command access to memory due to its volume, has to raise prices, it’s an ominous sign for the larger economy.

The price increases are difficult given the economic situation for most, but it’s a signal that any industry that depends upon memory is being slammed by chip production limitations. It’s not likely to subside during this decade. If you want to hedge, then buy shares of the chip fabricators. Otherwise, sit tight and take care of your current hardware.

I just wished Apple wouldn't take so long to ship product. 4 weeks?

 

[ikramerica]

At least now people won’t buy new tech so often and use their perfectly fine devices for longer. Only positive thing.

Like our perfectly fine watches?

 

[rabidbadger]

I'm not about to read through 24 pages but I assume *someone* has pointed out that you can still currently buy MacBooks at their pre-RAMpocalypse prices (and some on Prime Day sale to boot) at Amazon at least at the time of this post. I'm guessing that there are other retailers that haven't caught up yet either. I doubt that this window will stick around for long though.

 

[Velli]

Sure it is. They will maintain their margins so the price increases include higher dollar profit per unit rather than only increasing prices the same amount as the delta in memory and storage.

But sell fewer units due to higher prices. This is why companies count in percentages, not in absolutes.