No one will admit that iPhone and Mac pricing is going to go up again, but the rest of the industry is clear that it's inevitable sooner, rather than later. The Mac Studio has had the most dramatic price rises, but no Apple product will escape further increases. This isn't a sales post. We can't say what we're about to say any more clearly. If you are in the market now for any Apple device at all, or you expect to be soon, do not wait. Retail pricing will not get cheaper any time soon.
Back in July 2026, Apple's attempts to keep prices steady took their first stumble. Prices of Macs and iPads went up significantly, and only really the iPhone was immune — for a brief time. It was all very specifically because of the global chip shortage and how extraordinary demand from AI firms made it more expensive to buy processors and RAM. In August, the Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said that things would not get better until 2028.
On October 1, 2026, Mehrotra was back to report that things were worse for consumers, but better for Micron from a profit standpoint. Mehrotra says that Micron expects "memory and storage supply-demand conditions to be much tighter in calendar 2027 and 2028 than they were in 2026." Over 75% of Micron's 2027 output has already been sold to AI firms. Apple has ongoing contracts with Micron and TSMC, but in July 2026, TSMC raised its prices by 10%.
All the way back in June 2026, when he was still Apple's CEO, Tim Cook described the AI-driven chip shortages as being like a 100-year flood. "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," said Cook. Apple raised prices just a few days later. Apple has reportedly agreed to pay $2 per gigabit of DRAM for 2027 devices, up from $1.50 per gigabit.
Source: AppleInsider · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing