Apple doesn’t raise prices on a whim. It never runs sales. It doesn’t discount. If you walk into an Apple Store on a Tuesday in March, the MacBook costs the same as it did in January. That’s the whole point of Apple pricing — it’s boring and predictable.
So when Apple hikes prices across Macs, iPads, HomePods, and the Vision Pro all at once, you know something serious is happening. The MacBook Neo was supposed to start at $599. Now it’s $699. Some models jumped by hundreds of dollars.
Blame the memory shortage. It’s been hitting the industry for a while now — first game consoles (PS5, Xbox, Switch 2, Steam Deck all got price hikes), then laptops, then phones. Samsung’s S26 launched with less storage and a higher price. Google’s Pixel 10A is basically the same phone as last year, and the win is that it didn’t get more expensive.
Apple’s margins are legendary. If even Tim Cook can’t absorb the RAM crisis, nobody can.
The irony is that several big product launches happened right into this mess. Apple’s rumored folding iPhone could be its most expensive ever. Valve released a Steam Machine at twice the price of a PS5. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Trifold landed at a premium and got discontinued. The RAM shortage is sorting winners from losers in real time.
Apple seems to have stumbled out of its AI mess and straight into a supply chain crisis. The iPhone appears safe for now, but don’t be shocked if the iPhone 18 series gets a price bump too.
