The RAMpocalypse Hits Apple: Mac and iPad Prices Skyrocket

Editor’s Note: Apple’s direct retail prices are officially live, but third-party retailers haven’t caught up across the board yet. If you want to bypass the price hikes and lock in previous generation rates, scroll to the bottom of this page to jump straight to the active Amazon deals.

When Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said price increases were “unavoidable,” he wasn’t mincing words. Such a blunt announcement from any Apple executive is almost unprecedented — much less to hear it coming from the top. However, it seems Cook also wasn’t wasting any time in setting the stage.

It’s been just over a week since Cook told The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler that Apple would no longer be able to “shield [its] customers from the increases,” and while he was vague on specifics, those price hikes have landed today — and they’re pretty significant.

The only silver lining is that the hints of price increases coming to the Mac and iPad first turned out to be accurate — but they’ve also come so fast that we can no longer afford to be optimistic about iPhone price increases this fall.

After all, no Mac or iPad has come away unscathed from these price increases. While Apple snuck up the Mac mini last month by discontinuing the $599 model and there’s been evidence the Mac Studio would also soon be hit with a higher price tag, the actual changes have run nearly the entire gamut, from the MacBook Neo to the M4 Max Mac Studio. Even the Vision Pro is seeing a $200 price increase.

This is, without a doubt, the single most dramatic set of price increases we’ve ever seen from Apple — a company that typically treats price points as marketing points. Until now, Apple’s most significant changes were “stealth” increases where it raised the cost of entry by eliminating the lowest-priced model, thereby increasing its margins by forcing customers to purchase the next model up without actually increasing prices.

This is something completely different. Nearly everyone is well aware that memory, storage, and other chip costs have been skyrocketing over the past few months as AI hyperscalers gobble up all the premium stock and fabrication lines for massive data centers. Apple has weathered storms like this in the past, but this one is an outright typhoon — “a hundred-year flood,” as Cook told Winkler last week, adding “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.”

The Rising Tide: Apple’s New Prices

The Apple Store went down for a while this morning, which seemed unusual with no impending product announcements. But when it came back up, nearly every Mac and iPad was marked up by $100 or more from its earlier price.

Here’s the rundown of the new Mac prices. Note that these are the starting price changes, and the gaps increase further as you move into higher-end configurations — as exemplified by the “yikes-level” $1,300 increase on the M3 Ultra Mac Studio.

Apple’s iPads aren’t faring much better, with even the entry-level iPad — now over a year old — getting a $100 bump.

The Vision Pro also gets a $200 price bump, taking it from $3,499 to $3,699, although we can’t imagine too many people will care much about that. Anyone who’s already considering dropping $3,500 on Apple’s niche headset likely won’t quibble about an extra $200.

So far, the iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch have escaped price increases, but we don’t expect that to last. If anything, Apple is likely holding off only because it’s about to announce new products for those families in September. That’s not only a more logical time to raise those prices, but it also ensures Apple won’t have a hard time clearing out stock of the soon-to-be-discontinued models.

Still, we wouldn’t rule out price increases for the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17e this fall, since those aren’t expected to be replaced until early next year. After all, Apple is also reportedly preparing to release a new HomePod and Apple TV later this year, and that hasn’t stopped it from adding some modest price bumps on the current models:

While Apple has increased all the prices for direct sales through its own stores, those haven’t hit every third-party retailer yet. Best Buy already appears to have matched Apple’s new pricing, but there are still some stellar deals to be found on Amazon, especially as we come off this week’s Prime Day sale — but you’ll have to act fast if you want to beat the heat on your wallet.

Here are just a few of the deals on Amazon right now — while supplies (and prices) last:

• 256 GB MacBook Neo for $589.99
• 512GB MacBook Neo for $689.99
• 13-inch MacBook Air (512 GB) for $949
• 15-inch MacBook Air (512 GB) for $1,149.99
• M5 MacBook Pro (1 TB) for $1,549
• M5 Pro MacBook Pro (1 TB) for $2,034
• 11-inch iPad Air (M4) for $519
• 11-inch iPad Pro (M5) for $899
• iPad (A16) for $299
  

These are all currently at least slightly better than Apple’s old prices — which makes them significantly better than the hundreds of dollars more you’ll now be paying to purchase the same products directly from Apple. With Amazon being Amazon, there’s no way to predict when these prices may go up, but considering that other retailers are already adjusting to Apple’s new pricing, we wouldn’t recommend waiting too long.