Just a week after Tim Cook said price rises were inevitable, Apple has raised prices on most of its products due to increased memory demand.
Everything from the MacBook Neo to the Apple Vision Pro has gone up in price on Apple’s website, by as much as $200 for the latter. The MacBook Neo, which came out earlier this year for $599 as a way for Apple to take over some of the budget market from low-end Windows laptops and Chromebooks, went up by $100. The biggest price increase though, is the top-end Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra, which went up from $3,999 to $5,299 – a $1,300 jump.
These price increases aren’t exactly surprising. This entire year has been an ongoing saga of price increases for memory, thanks to increased demand from AI companies building data centers. The only surprising thing about Apple’s price increases coming now, is that it took as long as it did. After all, Apple has been known for its premium prices for years.
But at least Apple isn’t alone. Even the PS5 and the Xbox Series X saw price increases earlier this year, and we’ve heard from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma that the company expects memory costs to increase by five times by the end of 2027, which probably means more price increases in the future. And, just this week, the Steam Machine launched at a high $1,049 price point, thanks in large part to the current memory market.
The only silver lining here is that the prices haven’t quite jumped up on Amazon yet. If you were meaning to get your hands on a new MacBook or a new iPad, now might be the time to do it, before these $100-$300 price jumps hit there too.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
