iPhone 17 Prices Could Go Up as Soon as This Month

[MacRumors]

There is growing speculation that Apple may hike the prices of its iPhone 17 lineup as soon as this month, following CEO Tim Cook's recent comments about "unavoidable" price increases.

Last week, Cook told The Wall Street Journal that Apple is no longer able to absorb the increased cost of memory and storage chips, both of which are in high demand from AI and neocloud companies as they continue to build more data centers.

The scale of the AI infrastructure buildout has prompted debate over whether demand will ultimately justify the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested, but for now it is helping to drive supply constraints across the semiconductor industry. Cook likened the memory shortages to a hundred-year flood. "I've never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years," he said.

Multiple companies have already raised their prices, including Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, and Dell. Apple is now expected to follow suit. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes that the timing of Cook's comments likely indicates price hikes are "imminent." Gurman has also linked potential price increases to Apple's Back to School sale, which is expected to be announced imminently. His thinking is that Apple may tie the two things together as a "buffer."

Apple holds a Back to School sale each June, providing teachers and students with free accessories or gift cards when purchasing a Mac or an iPad. The added bonus is in addition to Apple's educational discount. The Back to School sale typically takes place around WWDC, and in three of the last five years, it has started 8 to 10 days after the WWDC keynote. That could mean we see the sale announced as soon as this week. Could higher device prices arrive in tandem?

Either way, Gurman believes the price hikes are "not a fall thing." In other words, they won't be held back until the launch of new iPhone 18 Pro models around mid-September. Chinese supply chain leaker Ice Universe said as much over the weekend, suggesting the price of Apple's current flagship lineup could rise before then.

Apple's existing iPhone retail prices are as follows:

• iPhone 17e: from $599
• iPhone 17: from $799
• iPhone Air: from $999
• iPhone 17 Pro: from $1,099
• iPhone 17 Pro Max: from $1,199

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal has published its own analysis estimating the iPhone 18 Pro could start as high as $1,399.

Prices on iPads and Macs could also go up in the near future.

Article Link: iPhone 17 Prices Could Go Up as Soon as This Month

 

[snipr125]

It’s happened before folks. I remember the iPad Air M1 going up by £100 overnight in the UK due to brexit. Any Apple tech you have been eyeing, pull the trigger now.

 

[winxmac]

I don't think there was a price increase within one year from the release of the device. The price decreases once the base model gets a newer model replacement. I'm referring to U.S.A. iPhone prices.

 

[thelion7]

There is growing speculation that Apple may hike the prices of its iPhone 17 lineup as soon as this month, following CEO Tim Cook's recent comments about "unavoidable" price increases.

Last week, Cook told The Wall Street Journal that Apple is no longer able to absorb the increased cost of memory and storage chips, both of which are in high demand from AI and neocloud companies as they continue to build more data centers.

The scale of the AI infrastructure buildout has prompted debate over whether demand will ultimately justify the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested, but for now it is helping to drive supply constraints across the semiconductor industry. Cook likened the memory shortages to a hundred-year flood. "I've never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years," he said.

Multiple companies have already raised their prices, including Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, and Dell. Apple is now expected to follow suit. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes that the timing of Cook's comments likely indicates price hikes are "imminent." Gurman has also linked potential price hikes to Apple's Back to School sale, which is expected to be announced imminently. His thinking is that Apple may tie the two things together as a "buffer."

Apple holds a Back to School sale each June, providing teachers and students with free accessories or gift cards when purchasing a Mac or an iPad. The added bonus is in addition to Apple's educational discount. The Back to School sale typically takes place around WWDC, and in three of the last five years, it has started 8 to 10 days after the WWDC keynote. That could mean we see it announced as soon as this week.

Either way, Gurman believes the price hikes are "not a fall thing." In other words, they won't be introduced when new iPhone 18 Pro models launch. The price of Apple's current flagship lineup could go up before then, as also suggested over the weekend by Chinese supply chain leaker Ice Universe.

Apple's existing iPhone prices are as follows:

• iPhone 17e: from $599
  
• iPhone 17: from $799
  
• iPhone Air: from $999
  
• iPhone 17 Pro: from $1,099
  
• iPhone 17 Pro Max: from $1,199

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal has published its own analysis estimating the iPhone 18 Pro could start as high as $1,399.

Prices on iPads and Macs could also go up in the near future.

Article Link: iPhone 17 Prices Could Go Up as Soon as This Month

Seems silly.

Apple should just reserve all price hikes for the next gens instead making customers pay more for a device that is getting more obsolete every day.

New generation, new price.

 

[krspkbl]

Wait until you see the price of the iPhone 18 series and the folding phone lol

Seems silly.

Apple should just reserve all price hikes for the next gens instead making customers pay more for a device that is getting more obsolete every day.

New generation, new price.

Think of the money Apple is losing!! /s

Why wait to sell the 18 Pro Max for $1400 when you can price the 17 Pro Max at that now then charge $1500-1600 for the 18 Pro Max.

 

[bevel]

First spec downgrades and now price bumps

I get the feeling outgoing Tim is going to play the role of the bad cop before handing over to Ternus

 

[jayducharme]

I hope that means my 17 Pro trade-in value will also increase. (I can always dream.)

 

[attila]

I blame it all on Scam Altman.

 

[krspkbl]

All this for a glorified text predicting chatbot 🙄

 

[bluecoast]

Monday 29th June after Prime Day / Week is my bet.

 

[dr.cox]

Not sure to if I understand all this. Will the current 17 pro models also have a price increase? I thought he was talking about the upcoming models?

 

[thelion7]

First spec downgrades and now price bumps

I get the feeling outgoing Tim is going to play the role of the bad cop before handing over to Ternus

That's a good point, let Tim leave taking the blame for the decisions customers aren't happy with. So Turnus has a clean slate.

Imagine if these decisions were made within weeks of Turnsus taking over, he would be imediately disliked at worst or it would be a poor first impression at best.

 

[kwikdeth]

All the folks saying apple should wait are in denial about how serious this shortage actually is.

 

[krspkbl]

Not sure to if I understand all this. Will the current 17 pro models also have a price increase? I thought he was talking about the upcoming models?

the title literally says iPhone 17.

 

[kwikdeth]

Not sure to if I understand all this. Will the current 17 pro models also have a price increase? I thought he was talking about the upcoming models?

E v e r y t h i n g is going up. Everything.

 

[rbbloom99]

“Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal has published its own analysis estimating the iPhone 18 Pro could start as high as $1,399.”

Then I guess I’ll keep my 15 pro. Not the end of the world 👌

 

[magamo]

Where is the proverbial AI productivity boost? I see semiconductor inflation everywhere as well as lots of AI slop and layoffs/hiring freeze. But I'm yet to see society-changing benefits.

 

[thelion7]

All the folks saying apple should wait are in denial about how serious this shortage actually is.

No denial, just the company has more money than god.

They won't go bankrupt between now and September...

 

[JulianL]

...

I get the feeling outgoing Tim is going to play the role of the bad cop before handing over to Ternus

Agreed. Announcing the price increase earlier than the September iPhone launch might well be to help the optics of the Cook to Ternus CEO transition. Get the price rises announced during the end of the Cook reign to avoid any "this doesn't look good, the first thing Ternus does is raise prices" backlash.

Yes, most folks on forums like this are probably clued-in enough regarding all things tech to realise this was inevitable and not a Ternus "let's gouge the customer" thing but for the wider public, and press outlets that might want to create a false narrative, it's maybe not a bad idea to remove that opportunity for misrepresentation.

 

[Omega Mac]

All the folks saying apple should wait are in denial about how serious this shortage actually is.

The biggest shortage will be of money in peoples pockets, for new devices.

 

[uacd]

Well, FAFO!

Who asked them to add more RAM to iPhones instead of optimizing software? Siri? I do not believe it will EVER be any better than Gemini that you can literally use from any 20 year old computer with browser, with 8 gb ram or much less since it resides in cloud.

Older iPhones were PERFECTLY FINE back in the days with 2, 4 or 6 gb or RAM, they had “only” 60 Hz displays, yet everyone was happy. Androids had more than 12 gb of RAM even back in 2019, and so what? Did it help much?

RAM means nothing these days, no one is ever going to run real LLM on their iPhone on purpose, that is for the much distant future. There are cloud services that are more than capable of doing stuff, and for the sake of justice - you don’t have to rely on AI all the time.

Whole RAM crisis looks highly suspicious and manufactured. Scam farms and stupid brands generate tons of image and video slop that looks like real rubbish, text generation practically eats nothing.

To sum it up, they could have avoided price hike by freezing RAM amount at 8GB. I have 17 Pro and I can’t see where these 12 GB are handy - Lightroom is super slow to edit ProRAW files, saves them slowly too, often becomes unresponsive.

Having said that, optimization is king. Even 64 GB won’t be enough if developer is lazy and “vibe coding” instead of doing actual job

 

[dominiongamma]

The biggest shortage will be of money in peoples pockets, for new devices.

I think people are going to learn to stretch their devices out even longer now to save money

 

[dannyyankou]

I expect carriers to lean on trade in deals like never before with the iPhone 18 Pro Max. I think we’ll get some very aggressive offers.

 

[mnls]

The biggest shortage will be of money in peoples pockets, for new devices.

Not necessarily. It’s not like Apple is the only company that makes phones.

 

[Steves Padawan]

2020 - covid - inflation, economical crysis, rise of services and subscriptions
2021 - covid - inflation, fall of sales, rise of gaming and services
2022 - war in ukraine - energetical crysis and inflation
2023 - inflation, economical growth
2024 - inflation from january to august
2025 - inflation whole year, work crysis, fall of sales everywhere
2026 - inflation, ram and ai crysis, economical crysis, fall of sales, work crysis, gaming become luxury, electronics price hikes, war in Iran... now Apple will be more expensive