We're already seeing price increases elsewhere in the market for many things using memory, but Apple has held the line better than most PC and phone companies due to better RAM usage by their operating systems and longer-term RAM contracts. But all things come to an end, and the RAM AND MEMORY-APOCALYPSE is coming for everything Apple.
With AI coming for ever-more of the computable universe, now would be a good time to upgrade, if you're planning to. I don't know anyone who expects RAM prices to drop anytime soon.
Thank you, AI.
This is already an issue in some areas; of the new iPhone 17 models, only the Air and the two Pro models have the required 12GB of RAM for two of the more interesting Apple Intelligence features.
. . . the ability to customize the expressiveness and pace of Siri's voice and a "major boost in accuracy" for speech-to-text dictation are only available on the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air, given that the latest, more advanced on-device Apple Intelligence model powering these enhancements requires a minimum of 12GB of RAM.
The standard iPhone 17 model and all previous-generation iPhone models are equipped with 8GB of RAM or less, so they do not support the new on-device model. (https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/10/two-ios-27-features-iphone-17-pro-air-only/)
Below, the news of coming price increases; several addition links in the original.
Apple has confirmed that its products will see price increases in the future due to ongoing memory supply constraints. Apple CEO Tim Cook delivered the bad news in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
Cook cited the ongoing RAM supply shortage as reason for “unavoidable” price increases. From the WSJ story published today:
“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” he said. “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”
Cook declined to offer details on the timing or scale of the planned price increases, nor which products will be affected. Apple’s next major product launch is likely to be in September when it releases the iPhone 18 lineup, expected to include a new foldable iPhone.
Price increases, especially for Macs and iPads, could come sooner. Apple raised the starting price of the Mac Mini last month in between launch events.
As the Journal notes, Apple raised the starting price of the Mac mini desktop computer recently. It did so by dropping the base storage option from the lineup. The price of the Mac mini with higher storage technically didn’t change.
But going forward, it sounds like Apple is planning to increase the starting price of hardware products in a more significant way. That’s at least what the message from the Journal interview excerpt seems to be.
Here’s more from the story published today:
Cook said prices for memory and storage are both issues for the company, though he focused on the DRAM market in particular, calling out the increased allocations going to so-called high-bandwidth memory that is used for AI servers.
“There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases,” said Cook. “We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That’s the bottom line.”
Cook delivers the message just months before stepping out of the role of CEO. On September 1, John Ternus will take over as CEO of Apple. Cook will serve as executive chairman of the board.
Apple’s planned price increases to deal with RAM costs comes after Apple introduced its most affordable Mac notebook ever with the MacBook Neo. The cheaper laptop only comes with 8GB RAM, which is less than many iPhones, iPads, and other modern Macs. Customers considering a higher-end MacBook Pro might want to lock in current prices.
The article doesn’t specify when Apple plans to increase prices on products or if price changes are coming to existing products. You can read the piece in full here.
Have you not planned for alternative RAM sources? Lined out your own production? Set aside a backup supply? What are all those high paid executives doing?
Apple DID in fact do what you're talking about, and has been able to put off raising prices longer than most PC, phone, and other tech manufacturers for that reason. But nothing lasts forever, and Apple's stockpiles of RAM and SSDs, along with their long-term contracts are no exception. Alternative RAM sources in particular aren't much help now because the shortage is vast enough to impact every source.
TU. Good points.
great analysis
People who want to exist in the walled garden of the crApple ecosystem are not proper anons.
Get your self respect back and de-google a pixel phone and build a linux box for your PC.
What is the adage about a fool and his money ?
Wow! I'm not a "proper anon."
You learn something new every day.
No offense intended dude, just a short rant by me and maybe I stand corrected on the anon thing....but you should really take back control.
My feeling is that the Feds (dozens of agencies, including Space Force) have all the data they want on me -- and you, probably -- including everything from access to local cop's license scanners to whatever you're talking about or texting or emailing from your phone and other devices. Your router at home can be used to follow your movements inside. I see news of major hacks daily (here are two from just one news site today: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/18/texas-government-data-breach-allowed-hackers-to-steal-3-million-drivers-licenses-and-passports/ and https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/17/cybercriminals-allegedly-hacked-tens-of-thousands-of-fortinet-firewalls-used-by-major-companies-all-over-the-world/) and AI is about to decrypt every damn thing on Earth, apparently.
I don't really worry about my Apple gear. Apple in fact is a lot more careful with customer data than most companies, although I suspect that already only helps against amateurs.
You are right about the egregious backdoors that state level actors have on everyone and de-googling a phone is no defense if specifically targeted although it did, for instance, stop people being identified on Jan 6 so if you were one of those peeps it may have saved you a jail term.
I am not trying to defend against state level surveillance, just everything and everyone else. The devil is in the details with Apple and they are extremely insidious. Check this very informative and thorough breakdown out which just goes from bad to worse, like I said the Devil is in the details and Godspeed fren:- https://youtu.be/_c8UrgGG3NA
Thank you for the video; I actually watched it when it came out -- or maybe it was another by this guy, focusing on the horrors of AI on phones, but in any case the information here isn't new to me. Food for thought and disturbing for sure, but I'm not willing to drive a 30-year-old car, give up cell phones and computers, and everything else I'd have to do to go dark. Or even switch to a non-Apple phone and de-Google it. I believe even that will offer little or no protection soon, if not already.
I feel the same about Google as you do about the iPhone; they (and Windows) have been massive spyware platforms for decades. And the Privacy Guy vid you linked makes good points about Apple -- increasingly, with AI, pretty much ANYTHING can be hacked. But like you, I'm not trying to defend against state-level surveillance which is already nearly impossible, and yes Apple's work on privacy is (I believe) useful against malicious less-than-state actors. Most of them anyway. OK, maybe some of them. In any case, I hear about far fewer such problems with iPhones than with Android models.
I'm damn glad I don't live in China or any of the other countries where blatant censorship and full-on tyranny is the norm (including an alternate America where the problem was getting worse instead of being pushed back under Trump).
I think AI itself has a fair chance -- either in the hands of government or Big Corps, or ON ITS OWN -- to suddenly or otherwise use the near-total availability of data to serious detriment to us all. Hell, another recent news item is that the Pentagon used Grok to bomb Iran.
AI has us in a Catch-22: we (meaning the government specifically) can't NOT embrace it and work hard to be #1 because if our enemies develop it faster and better than we do, then at some point we're TOAST. But humans have NEVER been able to run computers without being surprised by some of the things the do -- the "it can only do what its programmed to do" idea is nonsense, and in any case the AIs themselves are already writing much of the code.
Good luck to us all.
/dooming
No probs.
Well if it's any consolation, the deep-state/City of London/Satanist's lost/WEF etc, lost so hopefully the AI will be working for us shortly and the corporate spyware will get reigned in.