Apple Just Increased Prices on MacBooks, iPads, and More

[Abazigal]

Once memory prices came down, I bet Apple will find other excuses to keep their Mac prices high. Then it'll be electricity costs during production, or price for aluminium, or price for transport, or price for paper, whatever.

Apple didn't raise prices right away because they were still able to buy ram cheaply for a while thanks to their contracts. When ram pricing starts to fall, depending on how long Apple is locked into their current contract, they might not be able to lower prices right away either if they are still paying the higher prices for them. But I believe they will eventually bring them down.

 

[SmugMaverick]

The prices are NEVER going back down.

Max Whinebach said they ABSOLUTELY will go back which is just him sucking up to Apple these days since he gets invites to events.

Gurman said that it's hilarious that anyone believes apple will lower them.

 

[adrianlondon]

No one wants to pay more but anyone over the age of 65 knows what we had to pay for computers was like making a car payment cell phones were for doctors and lawyers and the cost of printers were pretty high with most of the country on dial up and the fortunate few on DSL so as bad as it is I remember far worse.

I can't even imagine how expensive it would be to by a WiFi enabled laptop in the 1960s!

 

[Velli]

That's OK.
I just beg to differ.

Not a lot of people these days are certain that they can truly make a $10,000 laptop pay for itself within a few years.
If you are, congratulations.

But the majority was perhaps reasonably convinced they could make a $7,000 laptop pay for itself within 3 years. Yet with the current economy tanking, customers more and more cancelling orders, I bet you would be thinking twice or even thrice as hard whether you really could make a $10,000 laptop pay for itself within 3 years now.
And I bet the majority will say: No, it's not going to work out.

End of the $10,000 laptop investment idea.


So I do bet that Apple will have a hard time selling their high-end machines now.
Sure, there are always billionaires who will be able to afford a few. But there aren't enough billionaires to make Apple's high end laptop line profitable.

Recent rumors that Apple might actually forego the M6 in their first line of MacBook Ultras could be hitting exactly that realization already.
Apple perhaps realized that their profit margins will shrink on their higher end devices, so coming out with an all-new MacBook lineup with also expensive latest generation CPUs - they may not make a lot of profit anymore.
So the safer bet is to use last year's generation of CPUs, which are cheaper, and which hence can generate higher profit margins. Especially when other innovations in the Ultra line will sell themselves (hopefully) anyway.


I bet Apple knows that their high-end machines will no longer sell well...

I just hope they will relent and realize that all they need to do is offer more flexibility with their models.
Allow for that MacBook Neo with 1TB or 2TB storage for larger movie projects.
Or allow for that MacBook Air with 128 GB RAM to run a few virtual machines concurrently.

If they continue to "force-upsell" people in all these cases, they will just lose clients. As these customers will no longer have the cash to follow through with an upsell.

And as I previously stated, of course the situation hurts their business. But they will be hurt less than low end manufacturers. The decline in 7000 USD laptops going to 10.000 will be less than the decline in 700 USD laptops going to 1000. The 700 USD customer will hold out until they can afford one. For the 7000 USD customer it was never about being able to afford it.

I work in the luxury AV equipment business. When the world economy is in decline, it hurts the luxury equipment less because rich people are still rich. I’m not basing this on a theory, but on first hand experience. It’s not good for Apple, but it is less bad for Apple than for competition. Come back in a year and tell me I was wrong.

 

[Harddrive]

I see this going 2 ways people will hold on to their older pieces longer which will affect sales or they will go into debt so they can keep up with the Jone's. This has played out in the past just history repeating itself the difference this time is the addiction to faster and newer tech .

 

[hovscorpion12]

So I decided to do a comparison of Apple’s pricing compared to some of the competition. For example Razer.

A spec’s out MBP 16 with 128GB /4TB is $6,999. As per Razer’s website. The Blade 18 with the same RAM and SSD is exactly the same price of $6,999.

If we went for the Blade 16” instead with 64GB /2TB option, it will cost the old $5,599 price.

Putting this into prospective, Apple’s pricing more or less equal to their competitors.

 

[Harddrive]

That is what I found if you match the spec Dell,HP ,Lenovo and Surface(business) they are all within about 100.00.

 

[bigglow]

I suspect Oct 2024 iMac M4, Oct 2024 Mac mini M4 (20 months ago) & Mar 2025 Mac Studio (15 months ago) did not get a refresh at WWDC 2026 three weeks ago because of parts price. 🙁

 

[onenorth]

I can't even imagine how expensive it would be to by a WiFi enabled laptop in the 1960s!

A 32-bit minicomputer in 1977 would cost at least $600,000 in today's dollars, so it was a shared resource that was kept in service for a decade or more.

The issue today isn't the cost of computing power as much as it is the rate of change of the cost. Everything gets much more expensive very quickly and wages don't keep pace. So much wealth now comes from passive and volatile sources such as the stock market. This wasn't the case 50 years ago. That's one reason this economy feels so fragile, to me at least.

 

[^^BIGMac]

Y’all settle down now! 😛

 

[Harddrive]

I can't even imagine how expensive it would be to by a WiFi enabled laptop in the 1960s!

It would have been astronomical since it was not in any laptop until the iBook G3 was introduced and fully spec'd out it was over 1500.00 a lot of money today and horrendous in 99.

 

[SnowCrocodile]

It would have been astronomical since it was not in any laptop until the iBook G3 was introduced and fully spec'd out it was over 1500.00 a lot of money today and horrendous in 99.

This is a pointless comparison anyway, computers were not required for everyday life until 2000s.

It would be astronomically expensive to have an electric service in 1880, but it was a necessary utility in 1980 and there would be no valid reason to justify 1880s level costs.

Same with devices.

Just look at the trajectory of traditional US automotive industry. They were shedding "cheap" products and concentrating on premium segment until they can't survive by just selling mid-market products. If people stop buying Silverados, F-150s, Rams, Suburbans etc. they are dead. In the meantime, the Asian automakers and (probably) Tesla are happily turning profits selling mid-market products. Hopefully Apple learns from that.

 

[onenorth]

This is a pointless comparison anyway, computers were not required for everyday life until 2000s.

It would be astronomically expensive to have an electric service in 1880, but it was a necessary utility in 1980 and there would be no valid reason to justify 1880s level costs.

Same with devices.

Just look at the trajectory of traditional US automotive industry. They were shedding "cheap" products and concentrating on premium segment until they can't survive by just selling mid-market products. If people stop buying Silverados, F-150s, Rams, Suburbans etc. they are dead. In the meantime, the Asian automakers and (probably) Tesla are happily turning profits selling mid-market products. Hopefully Apple learns from that.

While it is true that many costs are necessary, it is also true that we have benefited from economies of scale. This particular price hike is due solely to AI, which one might argue is not (yet) necessary. So we are paying for something unnecessary in order to get something else that is necessary.

 

[SupremeAntBee]

The Neo with tax is now almost $1100 Canadian here in Ontario. Bought an M4 MacBook Air in October, $1580 here with taxes, it's now $2032 after taxes for the M5.... These prices are getting ridiculous, I don't even want to imagine how much phones will go up. Going to have to keep everything longer now.

Thank you for the prices from a Canadian perspective. Honestly, I was too fearful to look them up myself.

 

[SupremeAntBee]

Apple TV too

Seems like the initial idea that the “soon to be released”🙄 new Apple TV, having a lower price point than the current one, is moot, now. I’ll keep waiting, though.

 

[Harddrive]

This is a pointless comparison anyway, computers were not required for everyday life until 2000s.

It would be astronomically expensive to have an electric service in 1880, but it was a necessary utility in 1980 and there would be no valid reason to justify 1880s level costs.

Same with devices.

Just look at the trajectory of traditional US automotive industry. They were shedding "cheap" products and concentrating on premium segment until they can't survive by just selling mid-market products. If people stop buying Silverados, F-150s, Rams, Suburbans etc. they are dead. In the meantime, the Asian automakers and (probably) Tesla are happily turning profits selling mid-market products. Hopefully Apple learns from that.

I hate to inform you but anyone that worked for Harley Davidson had a computer relied on for testing product updates and factory training outside of a week long school class in Milwaukee or Phoenix and that was the 90's.The US auto industry seems to be interested in selling Trucks and SUV's that will in turn bite them while Tesla and the foreign car mfg's have had a run selling cars . Classis example the daughter or son is going off to college is mom and dad going to fork out 50000 on a truck or suv or 30000 on a car just something to think about

 

[SnowCrocodile]

I hate to inform you but anyone that worked for Harley Davidson had a computer relied on for testing product updates and factory training outside of a week long school class in Milwaukee or Phoenix and that was the 90's.

I am talking about personal use. I’ve been using a computer as my primary work tool since 1992. But is wasn’t until 10, even 15 years later than they became absolutely necessary for daily life.

The US auto industry seems to be interested in selling Trucks and SUV's that will in turn bite them while Tesla and the foreign car mfg's have had a run selling cars . Classis example the daughter or son is going off to college is mom and dad going to fork out 50000 on a truck or suv or 30000 on a car just something to think about

Part of it is labor cost (not just plant union labor, product development labor is more expensive) but only a part.

The amount of waste due to poor planning - including strategic planning - and even worse plan control is just astounding, and most of that comes from the top.

 

[hovscorpion12]

I'm doing a video, but these prices are not just going to affect laptops and cellphones. I suspect TVs and cars will start seeing price increases as well. Imagine paying $10,000 that has 32GB of RAM and uses Ai to upscale to 4K.

I won't be surprised if we Nvidia's DLSS or FSR in TVs.

 

[Harddrive]

I'm doing a video, but these prices are not just going to affect laptops and cellphones. I suspect TVs and cars will start seeing price increases as well. Imagine paying $10,000 that has 32GB of RAM and uses Ai to upscale to 4K.

I won't be surprised if we Nvidia's DLSS or FSR in TVs.

I agree it will affect the motherboard of every modern TV just for picture processing alone never mind smart TV,s that require even more.

 

[Harddrive]

Your next car or truck is going to cost more the ECM along other dedicated control modules all rely on cpu,memory and drive which have all doubled in price and with that smart appliances in the homes I am afraid there will be rough times ahead. I wonder about our infrastructure on the electric grid for all these new data centers.

 

[spritle]

I'm willing to pay more to access the feature-laden, highly-successfully implemented Apple Intelligence.

 

[Bruce205]

How do you like the watch thing? I haven't worn one in 18 years but it looks nice and is worn by every nurse and EMT. So it must be good for something.

It's cool but I don't know if I would get another one ? On the other hand I couldn't be without my desktop Mini or iPhone.

 

[Zwhaler]

Why is the company using ram prices to gouge it’s users when Apple is a $4 trillion company.

You answered your own question.

 

[deathnite]

Glad I upgraded to an M5 iPad Pro back in January, I should be good for a few years now.
The upgrade was from an iPad Pro 10.5" 2017 which lasted 9 years.

Sad to see the Apple TV going up in price from $129 to $199. I was planing to buy my first Apple TV when the next gen comes out this year, which was rumored to maybe start at $99, but I guess that's not happening.

 

[rixa001]

Talk about the difference between an 'impulse buy' vs. smart 'impulse buy?' 😄

I couldn't consider upgrading my iPad (9th gen) because of all that happened during the 'built for...' fiasco. My attitude was that until their 'A.I.' showed promise (to where it'll go live at launch), I'd upgrade to a compatible 'Air' (especially since the 9 gen iPad was showing glitching/app crashes because of OS26).

But I took advantage of a deal with Best Buy to get an M3, 256 gig iPad (+ trade-in) for under $500.00. Who knows if I could have gotten a better deal during the holidays; but I can say that I did save something and it should be future-proofed for my needs. And...I'm staying with my 16PM: it's still a solid device, it'll have much of the 'built for...' benefits (DEPENDING) and I can wait to see what the 20th anniversary model(s) will offer (regardless of price).