Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Tim Cook Says Apple Price Increases Are 'Unavoidable' Due to Memory Costs
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Abazigal
Contributor
Well, Apple certainly didn't make all that money by giving away their stuff for free, so no reason to start doing so now. 😛
Ahaha. Heh. Ahahah. Ahum. Ahhahah… buahaha.. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!!!
They wont do that, why would they? Sales will not be affected.
That sounds about right. However some of the higher tier variants will likely increase by $300. It's not only memory that's costly and in short supply, but also storage. In 2024 I bought a 2TB M.2 SSD for my PC for £117. It now cost £260. DDR5 RAM has spiked even higher.
Anyone who plans to buy a high capacity Mac in the next few months should consider buying one ASAP.
maxoakland
macrumors 68000
Nobody expects that. They also shouldn’t expect to have insanely high margins at all times
Always great to hear from the leading economists and sales experts of the world.
Outside Veblen and Giffen goods, demand is always elastic and related to pricing. Getting to the right price is an optimization problem.
Feel free to run your own low margin business. High margins allows Apple to invest heavily in R&D without relying on risks loans or taking on unfavourable investors.
maxoakland
macrumors 68000
Possibly but it could also resemble the crypto bubble or the nft bubble
It's interesting that people keep posting how nobody doubts the benefits of AI / expects it to go away / expects Apple to operate at cost when there's heaps of posts in all types of forums that demonstrate the exact opposite.
Some people are very emotional about AI and for some reason have hated Apple with a fiery passion in these forums for years.
maxoakland
macrumors 68000
Hmm yes all that amazing r&d resulting in all those world changing new product categories over the past 10 years
They really do get a return on their investment
With certainty.
Here is an article about applications of AI. Please explain how all of these are completely useless and will go away: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications_of_artificial_intelligence
capamac
macrumors 6502a
"High margins allows Apple to invest heavily in R&D without relying on risks loans or taking on unfavourable investors."
Xerox PARC did about half of the R&D ... : )
And the BSD folks did the other half of the R&D. : )
Xerox PARC did about half of the R&D ... : )
And the BSD folks did the other half of the R&D. : )
Hmmmmmm yes, Apple Silicon is a total bust.
maxoakland
macrumors 68000
So those businesses have done all the R&D for iPhone, EarPods, apple silicone, Vision Pro and other unreleased products?
I would go back even further, BSD was based on AT&T Unix, which was based on an attempt to write an OS called Multics, which was based on AT&T existing, which was based on Alexander Graham Bell etc. etc. etc.
Nobody ever furthered anything.
I don't see a point in this line of discussion.
maxoakland
macrumors 68000
No but lots of those products were heavily inspired by products designed by other companies.
It’s not that Apple doesn’t do anything, but acting like they need giant margins to pay for their aMaZiNg r&d is silly because we’ve seen them waste millions (if not billions) on crap like the car that never came out, Vision Pro, and other flops
Maybe lower margins would force them to be more efficient and focused instead of wasteful and throwing things at the wall to see what sticks
maxoakland
macrumors 68000
Looks like you can only think of one new success from Apple’s R&D in the last ten years
At least I can end sentences in periods.
Also, I've been in these discussions. I could come up with a lot of things, and you'll shoot them all down. You believe they should work at cost or at low margins, fine. There are a lot of companies who get low margins, I suggest you get their highly innovative products.
DocMultimedia
macrumors 68030
I also bought a SSD five months ago, and when I looked to buy the same one this week it's far more expensive. I'll hold off a bit and see how it goes.
conmee
macrumors 65816
uacd
macrumors 68000
I disagree. At this point, I don’t care how market works.
It doesn’t cover my needs - I am not spending money. That’s it. Moreover modern market quite reminds me Soviet Union where there were options in the store, all of which were actually similarly bad.
I need a small iPhone and Apple throws gigantic slates to my face. I need clean UI and good, fast experience and Apple brings Liquid Glass. It is just not for me, so I do what market tells me to do - find an alternative. It is the most practical decision in this economy.
No but they still offer cheaper devices, especially in Europe where for example Galaxy and Pixels can have up to 40% price difference vs iPhones. In US it is not so noticeable, but Apple has already lost EU market thanks to their market strategy where they never discount their phones and also because of stupid EU taxation
Called it. They KNEW about this and did NOTHING. They could have invested into a NEW chip plant with one of their mem suppliers and OWNED it, Securing their future Supply. Did they? Nope. They HAVE to look decades ahead to secure their product lines, Tim Cook Failed. The Next Five years of products are in jeopardy if they sit on their laurels. High prices across the board. RAM AND Memory is key to their products and what is gonna happen? low sales=Low profit. So IS Apple Gonna invest into new fab plants? Billion dollar question. Apple has money to waste on it.