Apple Is Officially Raising Prices on Its Devices

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Key Takeaways

1. Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed to The Wall Street Journal that the company is officially raising prices.
2. Cook cites increased demand for RAM and storage chips, which have caused other companies like Sony, Nintendo, and Dell to raise prices.
3. It’s not yet clear which products will get a price hike, but it may be worth buying a new device now if you find a good deal.

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Between President Trump’s tariffs, global instability, and historic demand for RAM, the past year has had an outsized influence on tech prices. Just about every major company has announced price hikes recently, from laptop manufacturers like Acer and Dell to gaming companies like Sony and Nintendo. It’s an odd turn of events: In the past, you only needed to wait for a new piece of tech to get cheaper. But now, if you didn’t buy a Switch or PlayStation at launch, you’ll pay more for one today.

Despite these increases, Apple has largely avoided passing higher costs on to consumers. It has some tricks up its sleeve, of course: The company eliminated some cheaper device tiers, so the cost of entry for products like the Mac mini and MacBook Air technically increased, but it did so without actually raising prices. Over the past year, not only have Apple device prices stayed the same, the company has also released new low-cost options like the MacBook Neo, which offers a full Mac experience for the cost of an iPhone 16. (Perhaps there are some perks to being a $4 trillion company.)

Sadly, this isn’t a story about how Apple is continuing to keep prices stable. On Wednesday night, The Wall Street Journal published an exclusive, sharing news direct from outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook. “Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” Cook told the newspaper. “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.” In other words, Apple products are about to get more expensive.

Cook went on to say that both RAM and storage chip shortages are driving factors in these issues: “There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases.” In a rather ominous aside, he added, “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.”

There are few details in the piece outside of the quotes from Cook. We don’t know which products are going up in price, nor exactly when. The Wall Street Journal predicts that Apple will need to “substantially” increase prices if its goal is to maintain its current profits and cushion the impact from more expensive RAM and CPUs. Regardless, visit Apple’s online store and take note of the MSRPs you see: They’ll likely never be lower than they are right now.

Should You Buy Apple Devices Now to Beat the Price Increase?

Choosing when to buy tech is a bit like judging the stock market. You can make your best guess and hope you’re getting the lowest price, but tomorrow, a massive sale could make your deal look paltry by comparison. Or you could wait, and prices could creep higher. There are no guarantees anymore.

That said, we can make some educated guesses. Tim Cook is calculated, and while he may be passing the torch to John Ternus soon enough, he wants to ensure Apple’s valuation only continues to grow. As such, these price hikes are likely not imminent; rather, they will probably kick off with Apple’s next hardware release cycle, which the company will almost certainly announce in the fall. That could mean the iPhone 18 will cost more than the iPhone 17, or the Apple Watch Series 12 will cost more than the Series 11. The “iPhone Fold” has no predecessor to compare it to, but perhaps it, too, will cost more than Apple originally intended. If that’s the plan, Wall Street — as well as the rest of us — will no longer be surprised when new products cost more than last year’s.

If you’re set on buying a new Apple device as soon as it’s announced, you’ll need to anticipate paying more. But if your goal is to get a device at the best possible price, buying sooner rather than later is the safer bet. While Apple probably won’t raise prices before the fall, there’s no guarantee it won’t act earlier — so if you’re eyeing a current Apple product and find a good deal, it may be wise to pull the trigger now rather than risk paying more down the line.