After warning customers that its prices had to be increased, Apple did so on Thursday. The act of increasing prices wasn’t surprising (everything is more expensive nowadays), but the amounts of the increases were. The MacBook Neo is now $100 more, while Apple’s highest-end Mac, the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, shot up an eye-bleeding $1,300, a 33 percent increase.
After a few months of celebrating the idea that the entry point to the Mac is more affordable than ever, the party was abruptly cut short. These new prices are bound to scare some customers away. But here’s the question everyone’s asking: Is this a blip that we just need to wait out until Apple brings prices down, or are these newer price tags the new normal?
For some perspective, it helps to know why Apple raised its prices. The whole tech sector is experiencing a component shortage–thanks to AI– and Apple, for a while, was able to manage it so its prices weren’t affected. There were signs that Apple was in trouble—the Mac mini lineup eliminating the $599 model, and the M3 Ultra Mac Studio losing all memory options other than 96GB, for instance. The cracks started to show, and the dam finally broke this week.
The RAM shortage isn’t getting better anytime soon. For example, Micron, a memory manufacturer, said during its earnings call this week that the shortage may not start to ease until 2028. Other RAM companies have had similar forecasts. So prices influenced by the shortage could be here for at least the next 18 months, maybe more.
But even after this shortage is over, I don’t expect Apple to bring all prices down to pre-RAM crisis levels. Maybe we’ll see the MacBook Neo go back to $599, for example, or smaller incremental cuts to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro–Apple has done that before.
But I think for the most part, the prices we see now are going to stick, at least until Apple needs to raise prices again. As John Gruber said in a post on Daring Fireball, “Anyone who purchased a MacBook Neo for $600 (or $500 with education discount) between March and this morning purchased the lowest-price MacBook Apple has ever sold — and perhaps the lowest-price MacBook they ever will sell.”
That last part of Gruber’s statement is what resonates; after having these higher prices for the next year or so, everyone will be used to them. Apple will adjust to how its revenue is affected, and customers will accept it as the price of doing business.
In addition to the prices normalizing, there’s the state of the economy. There’s no way of knowing what will happen to affect the cost of the stuff we buy. If it’s not a RAM shortage, there are always other components, tariffs, inflation, supply chain restraints, the list goes on. There doesn’t seem to be any relief in sight. If anything, when the shortages stop, I could see Apple maintaining these price points for a few years, to a point where, in the future, these prices seem like a good deal.
What it all comes down to is Apple’s revenue. Even if Apple can’t reach the numbers Wall Street expects it to make, price cuts will be a last resort. But even if Apple takes a hit for a quarter or two, as long as it sees its numbers show growth again, Apple isn’t going to care that you’re paying higher prices than you did in early 2026.
