Apple Raises Prices On Macs, iPads, and More By Hundreds of Dollars
8 125Apple has sharply raised prices across its Mac, iPad, HomePod, and Apple TV lineups as surging AI-driven demand creates a global memory and storage shortage. Increases range from $30 for the HomePod mini to $1,300 for the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying efforts to shield customers from higher costs had become "unsustainable." The Verge reports: On Thursday, the company adjusted the price of its new MacBook Neo, which will now start at $699 instead of $599, while the base MacBook Air will jump to $1,299 from $1,099, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The 14-inch MacBook Pro is getting an increase as well, going from $1,699 to $1,999. Meanwhile, the iPad Air will now start at $749 instead of $599, while the iPad Pro is increasing to $1,199 from $999.
As spotted by MacRumors, the M4 Max Mac Studio will now cost $2,499, a big jump from $1,999. The M3 Ultra Mac Studio is now priced at $5,299, up from $3,999. Apple is even raising the prices of its HomePod, which now costs $349 instead of $299, as well as bumping the price of the HomePod mini to $129 instead of $99. The Apple TV also now costs $199 instead of $129.
8 comments
Re:Because they can. (Score: 5, Interesting)
by Mousit ( 646085 ) on Thursday June 25, 2026 @07:19PM (#66211100)
They raised prices because they can. The shortage gave them cover.
What really made it blatant was that they also raised prices in their Certified Refurbished store [macrumors.com]. You know, the store for shit which RAM costs were already long-ago paid.
Re:Because they can. (Score: 5, Insightful)
by radarskiy ( 2874255 ) on Friday June 26, 2026 @04:10PM (#66212340)
They raised prices because they can. The shortage gave them cover.
What really made it blatant was that they also raised prices in their Certified Refurbished store [macrumors.com]. You know, the store for shit which RAM costs were already long-ago paid.
-1, economically illiterate
The increased prices for new items will increase demand for refurbished items. In the short term the supply of refurbished items is constant so the price goes up. In the long term, this creates an incentive to refurbish more marginal items that would require more parts and labor than they could have previously recovered.
Re:Who's Who? (Score: 5, Interesting)
by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Thursday June 25, 2026 @04:24PM (#66210836)
Are you a part of the solution, or a part of the problem?
I'm part of the solution. I was about to buy an iPad Pro 13-inch, and bought a $160 Android tablet instead. Saved myself $1040. That was right before the price hikes.
Re:Who's Who? (Score: 5, Funny)
by BenBoy ( 615230 ) on Thursday June 25, 2026 @06:13PM (#66211030)
> Saved myself $1040. That was right before the price hikes. ...
Oof, bet that hurts. Think of how much you'd have saved if you'd waited until today
Re:Who's Who? (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Thursday June 25, 2026 @04:40PM (#66210876)
So, why DO people buy Apple? They know it is more expensive. Clearly, they believe they are getting something that is worth that price.
Apple goes to great efforts to protect user privacy. Some of what they do might just be promises and/or lies, but that is still better than the alternatives available, that openly spy on everything they can and sell it to whoever wants to buy it. For people who have the money to afford Apple products, it's worth it.
Of course there are free open source solutions that protect privacy, but they require greater tech knowledge to use and have more compatibility issues (there are always a group of Linux users that get all bent out of shape when someone says this. Too bad. I use Linux a lot and I am very familiar with the issues that crop up that the Linux community likes to pretend don't crop up).
There's also the matter of user experience. When I use windows 11, I fell pushed-around and limited. When I use MacOS, I feel obeyed and empowered. Your mileage may vary, but this was enough for me to buy Apple.
I hate windows enough that my gaming rig runs Linux. I love Apple enough that my "everything serious" machine runs MacOS. Even with these price hikes, I will still go Apple over Windows any day of the week, should I need another machine for any purpose other than gaming.
Re:Who's Who? (Score: 5, Insightful)
by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday June 25, 2026 @05:35PM (#66210974)
Frankly, the quality of build, the stability of the operating system, and just the plain reliability and features even in the supporting tools exceed Windows. Take the Preview App. The work I can do on PDFs; signatures, annotations, OCR, right out of the box, and built so that the versions on my iPhone and iPad fully integrate, cannot be easily replicated on Windows. Apple just really has an eye for workflow, and making sure the base system and tools fit well into that.
It's not perfect, to be sure, I wouldn't want to use Pages as my full time word processor, and Apple, like Microsoft and Google, suffer designed interoperation friction, which does suck. But all in all, I'm just more efficient on a Mac, and in subtle ways I never knew were even problems until I picked a MacBook up the first time. Honestly going to Windows right now is just horrible for me, particular Windows 11, which just feels like constant chaos and out of control busy-ness.
Re:That's perfectly okay! (Score: 5, Insightful)
by sit1963nz ( 934837 ) on Thursday June 25, 2026 @04:41PM (#66210884)
HOWEVER...
If a Mac can save someone 1 hour a week in time because it works better for them, and their time is worth $100/hr, that comes out to be $5200 a year in increased productivity.
If Linux does the same for you, 100% go for it, likewise Windows.
The most expensive part of the computer is the person sitting at the keyboard.
Re:That's perfectly okay! (Score: 5, Funny)
by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Thursday June 25, 2026 @05:12PM (#66210942)
I'm an Apple fan; I'm typing this on a 2018 Mac Mini that I spent roughly $2K on -- but it's 2026 and that Mac is still running just great. That works out to an amortized cost of about 68 cents per day -- which is to say, negligible compared to my other expenses.
Trying to save money by buying cheap computer hardware is like trying to save money by buying single-ply toilet paper -- you can do it, sure, but why make your life noticeably worse when the amount of money you'll save is trivial?