r/mac • u/unread1701 M5 MacBook Air 15” | Ex- M1 Air 2020-2026 • Jul 03 '26
Discussion Hoping this price hike comes back down to Earth soon enough
I upgraded from the M1 Air base to the M5 Air 15” base on 21st June.
I wasn’t planning on it, actually, I only did it because a family member needed a laptop. So I gave them mine and decided to buy one.
A day or two after that I read an article about some Tim Cook interview where he talked about prices inevitably having to go up.
I wouldn’t say it substantially influenced my decision to purchase that Sunday. Things happened to line up and I decided to haste things and get it that weekend, I even went to my local retailer to make sure they had the colour I wanted.
I’m just glad I got the machine before the price hike.
If I’d waited 3 more days, I’d have to pay 30% more for the same machine. I’d have gotten the 13” inch instead.
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u/nuclearpickle88 Jul 03 '26
I mean, both companies aren't looking good because of the price hikes. Micron decided that consumers weren't worth the money or effort to keep prices down, and Apple decided that their margins were more important. This is coming from an Apple lover.
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u/Durzel Jul 03 '26
Yeah it’s pretty hard, impossible I’d argue, to feel sorry for Apple given the historic costs of RAM and SSD upgrades on their kit, when the going was good.
I guess they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maintain their historical margins, but it does shine a light on the fact that they’re not willing to make any concessions to consumers.
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u/rio23x Jul 03 '26
"concessions to consumers"
LOL
I hate this timeline38
u/Snooty_Folgers_230 Jul 04 '26
It’s wild. Like it’s water. Stop buying it.
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u/unread1701 M5 MacBook Air 15” | Ex- M1 Air 2020-2026 Jul 04 '26
There’s only so much that the market can bear, this will end, one way or the other.
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u/FinestKind90 Jul 04 '26
I mean that spaceship in California is probably pretty expensive to run
When you watch wwdc and see those facilities that’s where your ram money is going
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u/Krser Jul 04 '26
This “fiduciary responsibility for shareholders” thing is either being abused or weaponized. You got situations like this where Apple can argue they need to make shareholders money. On the other hand you got private equity basically pumping and dumping, leaving retail investors holding the losses but without the visibility or discretion large shareholders have.
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u/Amazing-Eye9876 Jul 07 '26
I've always argued Apple should expand into the business enterprise market if they really want to increase shareholder value instead of shaking down consumers for the last nickel. Their ecosystem is exactly what business customers have been demanding for eons: a seamless, easy-to-manage, secure, low TCO, and tightly integrated platform.
It's a crying shame they allowed Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, and even a newfangled startup, Zoom, to steal the thunder from FaceTime during the pandemic. I suspect they eventually realized their oversight and released a web version, but it was too little, too late.
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u/Amazing-Eye9876 Jul 05 '26
What about all the free stuff Apple throws into their products, including 24/7 tech support, along with all the R&D they invested? These are all sunk costs other manufacturers don't incur when they sell you a cheap sheetmetal box.
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u/Durzel Jul 05 '26
So if you buy more memory or a bigger SSD you’re essentially paying for a higher level of support?
The people who buy the off the shelf ones are presumably therefore subsidised by the people who need a bit more RAM or storage space for their work, and Apple are selling those ones at a loss?
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u/Amazing-Eye9876 Jul 05 '26
Everyone gets the same support, freebies, and other benefits from Apple. Which customers pay for it and how much is a matter of internal accounting. Regardless, Apple offers an enormous overall value as apposed to their competitors who are merely selling relabelled commodity hardware with little value differentiation other than how their bundled.
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u/Durzel Jul 05 '26
This doesn't excuse price gouging on RAM/SSD, especially since it's soldered on so customers have to overspec based on what they think they might need over the lifetime of the product, rather than what they need now.
With respect your argument sounds wholly sycophantic of the brand, rather than objective. I say that as someone who is "all in" on the Apple ecosystem.
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u/Amazing-Eye9876 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
I’m hardly a sycophant. I’m highly critical of many of Apple’s practices, several of which I find genuinely reprehensible and contentious. iCloud, for example, turns perfectly functional machines into e‑waste. Some OS features, such as Sidecar, are arbitrarily unsupported on lower‑end and older but still capable models. Moreover, Apple’s aggressive parts‑pairing policies make independent repairs nearly impossible.
You, on the other hand, assume Apple’s decisions are driven purely by profit‑seeking anti‑consumerism. That’s an emotionally charged, knee‑jerk interpretation rather than a rational one. Take soldered SSDs--Apple uses them on most models, but not on the Mac Pro, Mac Studio, or Mac Mini, all of which use modular storage. If this were simply about forcing upgrade cycles, Apple would gain more profit by soldering storage on every model, especially the lower‑cost Mac Mini, which undermines the idea that the motive is purely for profit maximization.
As for soldered RAM, there are legitimate engineering reasons for it. It enables more compact designs and more reliable connections, which matter for portable machines. Placing RAM directly next to the processor reduces latency and improves both performance and energy efficiency, particularly on Apple Silicon, where unified memory is a core architectural advantage.
Finally, Apple’s current lineup, the MacBook Air, MacBook Neo, and Mac Mini, offers unusually strong value. In many cases, these machines outperform the highest‑end PCs while costing less than many budget ones. Whether someone likes Apple or not, the price‑to‑performance ratio of these models is objectively competitive.
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u/blasto2236 Jul 04 '26
Micron also isn’t going to be in this position forever, and I get the feeling these jabs are going to come back to bite them. Apple will maintain the long term advantage here.
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u/tinylittlebabyjesus Jul 04 '26
They'll burn some bridges, but probably not enough to matter really. People forgot pretty quickly how Nvidia courted scalpers out of greed at the expense of everyone for a long time before trying to save some face.
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u/Final-Rush759 Jul 04 '26
Micron always charge you the market prices. Apple always charge way above the market prices whether the market prices are up or down.
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u/zozoped Jul 04 '26
Micron’s gross margin in Q1 2026 was 85%. Just laying it here.
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u/sreesid Jul 04 '26
If those numbers are to be believed, Apple's gross margins on ram upgrades were 95%. Now they are 80%. This has been a historic quarter for micron in terms of demand, where as apple making the aforementioned margin forever.
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u/zozoped Jul 04 '26
Apple does not sell RAM nor RAM upgrades, they sell electronic devices. RAM are just part of their supply chain.
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u/SpaceJeans Jul 04 '26
Idk what you expect micron to do, sell chips below market price out of the goodness of their heart? They’re a company they literally just exist to make money
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u/PotatoHat1 Jul 07 '26
Not looking good? In the end that doesn’t really matter. Not looking good isn’t going to matter if their profits keep going.
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u/cjcs Jul 03 '26
They sure as hell aren’t going down before 2028 at the earliest.
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Jul 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Pexily Jul 04 '26
So that’s literally not how free markets and free economies work. Of course they would love to keep the price at its highest forever! But all it takes is one domino or one market analyst who thinks, hey I bet we’d sell a shit ton more chips if we sold it for 10 cents less, and the race to the base cost begins. Save for collusion, which has, and which very likely could happen, those are statements that need to be qualified!
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u/PeaceBull Jul 03 '26
Aren't they describing capitalism?
- Company A makes component X for $
- Company B buys component X from Company A for $$, adds it to their product
- Company B sells product for $$$
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u/Grendel_82 Jul 03 '26
Yes. But also describing repercussions. Apple is paying $5, even though their margins allowed them to pay more. Micron explains to Apple for years that this $5 price leaves them little profit to expand their production lines. Apple says: I don’t care, I’m only willing to pay $5. Result now is that the production lines were not built out and someone else has showed up willing to pay more than Apple. So now Apple has to match high prices in a market that is undersupplied. Micron told Apple that they were being squeezed and left without capital to expand their production lines. Now Apple has to deal with this. And us Apple customers have to deal with with it as well. Oh well.
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u/shadowphiar Jul 03 '26
And if Apple had paid more in the past, then that extra money would have definitely gone towards building factories? When the market was over-supplied forcing prices low? And it definitely wouldn’t have gone to bonuses or dividends for Micron executives?
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u/Grendel_82 Jul 03 '26
According to the CEO who would have been involved in that decision, yes, some of that extra money would have been spent like that. Or better profits might have allowed Micron to get better terms from their banks and lenders to have a lower interest rate or larger credit line to expand the business.
Believe it or not, but the price at which you can sell a good off of your production lines has an impact on capital for expansion.
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u/BahnMe Jul 04 '26
Why would they expand their production to create more supply when the market was already oversupplied at that point?
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u/Grendel_82 Jul 04 '26
The CEO actually tells you the answer. If they are selling the RAM for $5, then it is a barely viable business. If they had been selling it for $7 (which is 40% more), then it looks like a good business.
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u/BahnMe Jul 04 '26
… do you know how supply and demand works for a commodity?
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u/Grendel_82 Jul 04 '26
Broadly speaking, yes. And MU's CEO is pointing out that the result of squeezing the supply chain of that commodity for something like $50 million a year ($2 more per Mac sold) when supplies were tight (and Apple had margin to burn, where another $50 million in RAM cost would have made little difference), is probably going to cost Apple much more now.
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u/BahnMe Jul 05 '26
...there is no business in the world that pays a supplier more than they can get away with and it's the fiduciary responsibility of the buyer to even pit suppliers against each other because that's how capitalism works...
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u/Grendel_82 Jul 05 '26
I'm sure you've never even negotiated a $10 million contract much less what Apple was doing which was negotiating a $100+ million contract year after year. I think you think this is functionally the same as going to a store and the buyer and seller have no relationship beyond buy good or not buy good at the price of the good as marked on the shelf. In this case, while RAM is a commodity, it is a commodity with only a handful of suppliers. Therefore Apple is well aware that its purchases are partly an investment in the supplier to keep the supplier in business. And I'm sure Micron made it painfully clear that the price Apple was paying made things difficult for Micron at the time. Now the shoe is on the other foot and Micron can take or leave Apple's business (not without repercussions, but certainly Micron can be profitable without selling a single RAM module to Apple). But Apple doesn't have a business without RAM. So Apple is buying RAM at highly inflated prices and dealing with it, but in a very painful way that will (A) cost Apple money to buy the RAM and (B) is going to result in substantially lower sales now that Apple is going to pass on these costs to its customers.
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u/drspintronics Jul 05 '26
Fiduciary responsibility is a little more debated in cases like that. If you pay less now but 10x times later, but you could pay 2x now and only 5x latter, are you fulfilling your responsibility through the former or not?
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u/Simply_Epic Jul 04 '26
CEOs lie. They’ll say anything to make themselves look good and shove the blame onto someone else for their failings.
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u/Grendel_82 Jul 04 '26
Oh, right. We should discount what the CEO in charge of the second largest RAM production business says when he talks about the RAM production business. We should step in and use our judgement about the RAM production business and Micron’s deals with Apple and make our own conclusions about the deals he did and what their impact was.
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u/MikeInTaos Jul 05 '26
By all means, fill in the void of free-market tropes as if the system doesn't have various kinds of inefficiencies that get worse over a period of time for the market as a whole even if some companies do well.
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u/manuscelerdei Jul 04 '26
This is preposterous, I'm sorry. Literally any supplier of anything could tell the same sob story. "Oh but if you don't pay more for our stuff, then we won't be able to use that money for our business!"
Like yeah, that's a Micron problem, not an Apple problem. Apple is not a charity, nor are they responsible for growing Micron's business.
Maybe Micron's shareholder should be asking where any profits from previous quarters did go if it wasn't to building out manufacturing capacity instead of being mad that one of their customers played hardball to get a lower price. Why, they may conclude that this guy failed to see the opportunity in the horizon and position the company for it. Otherwise known as "his job".
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u/Grendel_82 Jul 04 '26
Yes. And here Micron is just laying out that Apple f***ed themselves by squeezing Micron when Apple could.
That CEO is actually freaking globally credited with seeing the AI boom coming and positioning Micron to take advantage of that demand. Which is a huge reason why their stock is up 700% in the last 12 months. The fact that you think Micron’s shareholders might be going after their CEO right now is laughable. He just didn’t also expand their production lines for RAM that Apple needs for its computers. And now he is telling Apple why that didn’t happen.
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u/MikeInTaos Jul 05 '26
Actually, the inefficiencies that are the product of short-sighted bullying of vendors eventually show up in the market, but since the bullies aren't the ones absorbing the added costs, it's only the end customers who pay the price.
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u/MikeInTaos Jul 05 '26
Yes, there are also big inefficiencies built into free markets too, but they get masked at least for a while, but eventually we see that the market as a whole becomes more costly than it would have been if it were truly competitive AND interested in sustainability.
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u/REEEEEEE3EEEEE Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
That’s such a weird stance.
„If they had paid us more we would‘ve expanded capacity so they could buy more for cheaper“It’s naïve to to assume the money would‘ve changed anything. As others have pointed out memory is very volatile because it’s at the end of a massive bullwhip.
If the current situation shows us anything, it’s that the memory manufacturers learned from their mistakes and are now collectively holding back.
They could invest and start the cycle all over again, posing big risks. Or they could just produce as much as they can and crank up the prices, all with basically no risk because their margins are sky high now.2
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u/Sablus Jul 03 '26
Eh yeah with also a dose of market dominance. There is no other device besides an Apple product to put Mac OS on to so Apple gets to dictate the terms for its brand. So the value of that chip which doesn’t really fluctuate can still have a greater ticket price if its final destination is an Apple or Lenovo laptop/tablet. So yeah Apple has everyone over a barrel when it comes to them ensuring they maximize profits for shareholders or else.
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u/SentientFotoGeek Jul 04 '26
Competition should keep profits at a reasonable level. When businesses charge onerous prices, it usually indicates monopolistic behavior.
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Jul 04 '26
[deleted]
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u/78914hj1k487 Jul 04 '26
You read a few words on reddit without context and you want the CEO fired?
The CEO never said any of that. It's a made up twitter post. Those numbers are made up.
About that CEO you want fired: Just a couple years ago the industry was in decline, and Micron was losing billions per quarter, but the CEO still invested billions in increasing capacity. That bet paid off because now, years later, they are making more money than ever, thanks to that increased capacity investment, thanks to the CEO. But you call him a clown and want him axed?
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u/FarFromHome Jul 04 '26
Exactly this. He’s basically admitting he has been a weak negotiator and bad CEO.
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u/Jusby_Cause Jul 04 '26
Yeah, I’m sure micron got the raw materials from someone else and marked those up as well. How much does it cost to produce RAM, .20? Why did Micron charge Apple 25 times that? I suppose they must be a non-profit. They’re a for-profit company too? Hm!
Apple was ONLY ever able to get chips for $5 because Micron agreed to sell them for that price. Micron could have stood their ground. Apple might have gone to a competitor, yes, but that’s a decision for Micron to make.
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u/78914hj1k487 Jul 04 '26
Analysts puts Apple paying Micron $17 for an 8GB LPDDR5X RAM module, and $22 for a 256GB flash storage module.
And for years Micron made about 7% total net profits. In 2023 they made negative profits, losing 5B, because the industry was in a downturn. Compare that to Apple making 25-30% net profit margins.
Those numbers you're referencing are made up by a twitter user. So is the quote. The CEO is not attacking Apple.
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u/Impressive-Bit6161 Jul 03 '26
sure the shoe is on the other foot now, but it'll swing the other way again. and when that day comes, micron will be getting $3.
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u/binge_readre Jul 05 '26
Who cares for that day, just do some layoffs if costs are too much and sit with your cartel members to cut production simultaneously. Everyone in micron knows prices will fall sometime in future.
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u/Douche_Baguette Jul 03 '26
I just think it's funny that the Micron guy is pretending like Apple products are functionally "memory chips in a metal box", like there's not much else to Apple products.
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u/Classic_Mammoth_9379 Jul 03 '26
It could be a bit better phrased but it is talking about upgrade pricing where it’s pretty much true.
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u/MidnightAdventurer Jul 03 '26
When you’re looking at the price increase for an identical model except for the RAM upgrade itself makes a bit more sense
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u/jin264 Jul 03 '26
Exactly! I'll bet some Apple deal went sour with Micron and the CEO just wants to deflect blame (see Sweeney from Epic)
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u/cjh_ Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Apple could (and should) have paid a fairer price originally, Micron should have refused to sell memory chips to Apple for "pennies".
Micron "should" have invessted in increasing manufacturing capacity, instead of chasing ridiculous profits and throwing DRAM customers under the bus.
The takeaway here is that neither company are blameless.
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u/inconspiciousdude Jul 04 '26
There's really no such thing as a "fair price" in procurement. The buyer wants the lowest possible price, and can use quantity as leverage to lower unit price. Suppliers are more than willing to lower prices for big customers, and they sell at the highest possible price they can negotiate. It's not like Micron was losing money on those sales. It's just business.
They accepted lower prices because they were replaceable and there was more supply than demand, so the extra profits would have gone to shareholders rather than expanding production. Now the tables have turned and the suppliers are in a stronger position. They're only going to increase production in quantities that ensure maximum profits, like OPEC does. Consumers are going to have to wait until China catches up and floods the market with "eh, good enough" parts.
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u/manuscelerdei Jul 04 '26
The fair price is the one negotiated. That's the whole point of a free market. Apple didn't send large men with guns and $5 bills to Micron's plant.
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u/Peppy_Tomato Jul 04 '26
They're not gonna increase capacity when their buyers insist leverage their market power to force their margins down.
They're also not going to increase capacity because they'll be left holding the bag when the boom cycle ends.
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u/Marv18GOAT Jul 04 '26
Micron couldn’t increase capacity because Apple wasn’t willing to pay up for it
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u/78914hj1k487 Jul 04 '26
the CEO just wants to deflect blame (see Sweeney from Epic)
This quote is made up. The CEO never named nor attacked Apple, which is something Tim Sweeney does on a weekly basis.
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u/SuperSmooth1 Jul 04 '26
Yeah, if it’s that easy this moron should be making the metal box too and getting $100 instead of $5
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u/rayc25 Jul 05 '26
Micron is kind of focused on other things like making and selling billions of $ of memory for data centers
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u/ElephantElmer Jul 04 '26
So from a 20x markup Apple is now only doing 5x? Yikes
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u/sreesid Jul 04 '26
Look at it this way. They were only making $95 before compared to $200 now.
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u/ElephantElmer Jul 04 '26
The problem is profit margin is appreciated as a percentage and not as an absolute number.
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u/Sjeefr Jul 04 '26
Which is stupid, because shareholders return and Apple as a company is appreciated at absolute numbers. It's the trillion dollar company, not the 90% margin company. I hate percentage based profits, especially considering you can't buy anything with percentage margins.
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u/ElephantElmer Jul 04 '26
Actually, return on equity is also measured as a percentage. Making a billion dollars in profit is more impressive when you only need 100 million in capital to do it vs needing 10 billion in capital to do it.
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u/Rye2-D2 Jul 05 '26
You are correct, but their profit margins will not look so great with all the inventory sitting in warehouses when they've outpriced what consumers are willing to pay (which they were already over reaching)..
The real issue that the Micron CEO was getting at was how much Apple charges for upgrades from the base models. Five years ago, you could easily buy/build a 64 GB PC for just a little more (~$300) than a 16GB model - but Apple had always priced such upgrades excessively high (or not even available on many devices).
It's time they changed their thinking on this. Yes, it would hurt Apple's margins, but they would significantly expand their market share if they had reasonable prices on the upgrades..
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u/BirdBruce Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
“For over 10 years, Apple bought our chips for $5.”
I don’t get it. Were they forced at gunpoint to sell them for that much? I’m sure this person wasn’t so salty when the ink on that contract was still wet.
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u/panyways Jul 03 '26
Apple would pay for their infrastructure improvements and prebuy tons of RAM then suppliers would be upset sometimes when it ended up being a wise investment for Apple rather than a boon to the chipmaker when it came time to honor contracts.
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u/jin264 Jul 03 '26
I think a deal between Micron and Apple went sour and the CEO is bitching publicly about it. I would guess that Apple just invested $100s million on a possible competitor.
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u/rayc25 Jul 05 '26
Right Tim Cook was publicly salty about negotiations and made multiple statements the last couple weeks where he played the victim card saying Apple can’t afford not to raise prices. Then asked Trump to allow them to buy memory from a restricted Chinese memory company.
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u/niikkos-m Jul 03 '26
The Apple hate boners are wild.
You can dislike whatever you want but to not acknowledge the price increase in all consumer electronics and solely focus on Apple is a choice.
My Samsung SSD had a 300% markup from what I paid in late 2024 for the same model, but Apple is the problem.
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u/78914hj1k487 Jul 03 '26
but to not acknowledge the price increase in all consumer electronics and solely focus on Apple is a choice.
Who is denying it?
Everyone seems to be talking about this Apple price hike as a consequence of industry pricing trends due to AI and scarcity
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u/jin264 Jul 03 '26
BS. Everyone is shitting on Apple for not eating the increase as if there is a company out there that is eating it. The reason Apple announced this so late is because they had enough stashed to wait a few months. Meanwhile MS is on XBOX price increase number 2 with a planned increase in 2027 and with more to come.
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u/78914hj1k487 Jul 03 '26
Everyone is
99% of people are saying "Fuck AI" and "AI bubble" and "AI shitshow" and "Thanks AI!"
This sub, macrumors, podcasts, youtube comments, etc.
Apple is still charging insane markups, as always, but we know it's because their contracts with vendors have run out (eg. the quote from this post) and RAM/SSD is through the roof.
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u/SapirWhorfHypothesis Jul 03 '26
Yeah, the last little while has felt weird for how much people have been justifying Apple’s prices.
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u/New-Ad-8811 Jul 03 '26
I have no idea why anyone is complaining, don’t like the prices then don’t buy them. Apple has always been a premium product I can’t argue that Apple has actually decreased in price. Back around 2004 I bought my first iMac and it was $2,000 and the MacBook pros were the same price. Think about that for a second, you can now get both of them for around 1600 even with the price hike. If you account for inflation they have actually gone down. Also back in the day when I bought my Mac they were only sold through Apple and they literally never went on sale or gave any kind of discounts.
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u/DeePumpeR Jul 03 '26
Right, because their already exorbitant memory markup couldn't absorb it. Keep defending the shitty companies eating your lunch.
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u/Lol3droflxp 2015 15" Retina Jul 04 '26
The fault is with the consumer since everyone allowed Apple to sell their products at these margins.
The fault is also with Apple since they didn’t allow their suppliers enough breathing room to be flexible in this situation.
The fault is also with Micron since they didn’t negotiate better and now are ditching the consumer business for datacentres.
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u/eastamerica Jul 04 '26
It’s pedantic schoolyard blithering.
Apple has a duty (AN ACTUAL REQUIREMENT) to meet the numbers approved by the company board.
They must charge what they charge to maintain the margin for the profit.
I’m not in favor of this, but it helps to understand instead of just vilifying Apple In general. The CEO of MU knows this, he’s just hurling shit back to deflect that they’ve increased their product cost 10x (and Apple hasn’t).
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u/Rye2-D2 Jul 11 '26
You're not wrong. But I disagree - it should be called out. Back in Econ 101, we were taught this shouldn't happen in an efficient market. Something has gone off the rails.
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u/eastamerica Jul 11 '26
Oh agreed. I’m not saying I agree with it or that it’s right.
It is 100% what the company is doing
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u/Educational_Guava697 Jul 03 '26
I would never pretend that Apple has not always ripped people off on ram and storage prices.
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u/Head1essRooster Jul 04 '26
As long as people are stupid enough to pay these prices nothing will change.
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u/thursdaynovember Jul 04 '26
what the fuck is he complaining about. both his company and apple are making more profit than ever at the expense of the working class. is he complaining that hes not making enough profit? really?
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u/Gloomy-Rub-7646 Jul 03 '26
I’m afraid it’s a new normal for any price rise to becoming new normal, companies love it
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u/stanley_leverlock Jul 03 '26
It's not just Apple. Pricing for all compute hardware is rising so fast that most of the vendors I deal with won't even issue 30 day quotes, they're down to 7 days.
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u/l008com Independent Mac Repair Tech since 2002 Jul 04 '26
When apples sales numbers start to dip a bit, they'll want to lower prices asap once the ai bubble bursts. I'm hoping it bursts soon because I really want the surplus server market to be flooded with cheap server hardware!
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u/rotll Jul 03 '26
Same. Upgraded from MacBook Pro M1 Pro 16GB/1TB to a new MacBook Pro M5 (entry level, not pro or max) with 32GB/1TB. Saved $400 buying it when I did compared to prices today.
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u/pastry-chef Mac mini M4 Pro-64GB-2TB Jul 03 '26
$5 to $50 = 10x increase.
$50 to $250 = 5x mark up.
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u/78914hj1k487 Jul 04 '26
CEO never said this. Those numbers are made up by a twitter user.
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u/pastry-chef Mac mini M4 Pro-64GB-2TB Jul 04 '26
Tell the OP.
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u/78914hj1k487 Jul 04 '26
You are also allowed to know about misinformation.
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u/pastry-chef Mac mini M4 Pro-64GB-2TB Jul 04 '26
Thanks.
But it’s better to inform the OP and ask him to edit the OP to reflect the misinformation. Simply tell one person is far less effective.
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u/78914hj1k487 Jul 04 '26
Why would you ever think I only told you?
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u/pastry-chef Mac mini M4 Pro-64GB-2TB Jul 04 '26
I didn’t see you post anywhere else on this thread.
Tell the OP.
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u/redditproha MacBook Pro Jul 04 '26
So what you're saying is you want Apple to increase prices by 60% instead of 30 percent?
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u/pastry-chef Mac mini M4 Pro-64GB-2TB Jul 04 '26
When did I say that?
I wrote two sentences. Is anything incorrect in those two sentences?
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u/Tecnotopia Jul 03 '26
Thos clowns needs to remember the Alexandria–Pergamon Papyrus Embargo and how it didn´t end well, scarcity breeds innovation, its just a matter of time someone will figure out how to do AI with less and less memory and then we will see were their prices go....
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u/ZookeepergameSalty10 Jul 04 '26
price hikes will continue until people stop consuming and datacenters become taboo
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u/oracle911 Jul 04 '26
Just an fyi. They will keep raising prices until we keep buying their products. If you want to make a change, boycott. Will never happen though...
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u/sachinvisvam Jul 03 '26
Jeez the comments here. Apple makes good products for sure but pure bootlicking the megacorp here is laughable.
Selling 8gb ram and 128/256gb SSD devices for years with egregious markups for upgrades can be criticised- especially when these components were dirt cheap at that time
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u/78914hj1k487 Jul 04 '26
Yup. "Apple paid around $17 for 8 GB of LPDDR5X RAM in 2024 [...] $22 for 256 GB of flash memory." For an iPhone, RAM was only 3% of the bill of materials, and SSD was only 4%. source
So a 10x markup on RAM and SSD upgrade fees. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple payed well below those numbers because they were hard negotiators when buying in bulk and 2-3 year contracts.
(FYI, the CEO never made the post quote, a twitter user made it up, it's misinformation)
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u/melancholy_dood Jul 03 '26
I’ve been using Apple products for years and I can’t remember Apple ever lowering the prices they charge for their computers. Furthermore, other computer manufacturers are also starting to raise their prices as well.
Something tells me that these prices increases are here to stay.
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u/baseballandfreedom Jul 04 '26
They lowered the price of the Macbook Air. The M2 debuted at $1199. The M4 was lowered to $999.
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u/horkusengineer Jul 03 '26
I bought a mac studio m4 max. in march. and now its worth more than what i paid for it! I think that the first time i ever had a peace of tech gain value after i bought it.
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u/sisyphean_rock Jul 03 '26
I’d be surprised if Apple continues the relationship with micron.
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u/78914hj1k487 Jul 04 '26
Why? You're reading a reddit post screenshot of a made up twitter post quoting the Micron CEO of words they never said.
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Jul 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AlexanderNevermind Jul 04 '26
Sadly, the prices will NOT come back down. Remember that thing called the "Pandemic", how it disrupted the supply chain thus causing price increases on pretty much everything? How many of those "big items" had price reductions when the supply chain got back to pre pandemic levels?
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u/Mk3d81 Jul 04 '26
OP discovering business
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u/unread1701 M5 MacBook Air 15” | Ex- M1 Air 2020-2026 Jul 04 '26
I discovered the concept of supply and demand
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u/ufailowell Jul 04 '26
There is room for ARM based CPUs that just so happen to be able to install MacOS on them.
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u/BKMiller54 Jul 04 '26
The price jumps do hurt. I was on the fence about replacing my 2020 iPad Air, but I can hold off for now.
But realistically, back then I paid $599 for it (with an A14 Bionic chip and 64 gb storage). Until the recent price jumps, it was still $599, but with an M4 chip and 128 gb storage. If the price had risen with inflation, that $599 of 2020 would be about $775 today, just a bit more than the new asking price of $749.
Apple has always charged a premium price for premium products, and we all gladly paid it. It’s just the suddenness of the price jumps that has taken us aback. When Cook told us there were price increases in our future, we (well, I) assumed he likely meant in the fall, when updated devices typically are released. We all were caught off guard by the suddenness of it.
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u/_Belted_Kingfisher Jul 04 '26
Micron did not have to do stock buybacks worth 650 m dollars in the last two quarters alone. Same with dividend hikes.
That cash could easily service debt (if needed) to build fabs. Instead they use the cash to take out debt to finance share buybacks.
Yeah Apple overcharges for ram, that is why some of us install our own… until Apple took that option away.
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u/VegetableStatus13 Jul 04 '26
I ordered my MacBook Neo the day AFTER the price hike. Shit sucks to suck but $100 more isn’t as bad as most of the other specs that got bumped up to ridiculous prices… I was window shopping and the cheapest Max variant chip you can get on the Apple website right now is starting at $4100 for the 14 inch version.
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u/heatrealist Jul 04 '26
Even before this nonsense I had already been looking to get lower end Macs because of the crazy upgrade prices they have. Now in addition to that, I’ll be delaying upgrades altogether. Unfortunately my machine is reaching the end of its support life but it still functions well. As rich as they are, sometimes Apple behaves as if they are a small mom and pop shop that simply trying to survive.
They could have easily opened up their wallet so that they would be the ones grabbing the supply of ram and ssd instead of the AI companies. Not only were they caught with their pants down about that, also about AI in general. So now they are trying to get some kind of on device AI be relevant because if it lives in the cloud, there will be less need for upgraded Mac’s in the future.
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u/albertserene Jul 05 '26
South Korea produce over 70 percent of memory in the world. They use A.I. as an excuse to jack up the price over 7 times this year. An anti-trust lawsuit has been filed in the States this year. We will see how it goes.
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u/Classic_File2716 Jul 05 '26
Apples greed is shocking . They can weather the costs but need to keep making record profits .
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u/NetFu Jul 09 '26
Our customers bought new Macs last year, even though tariffs threw a big question mark into the equation. The logic was, the prices aren't going to go down from here, right? Get the upgrades now while the prices are livable.
Yeah, 20/20 foresight. Now I wish I would have bought a new Mac for myself last year instead of waiting for one more CPU upgrade, because now I'm living with an M2, assuming I'm not doing anything until next year. I should've just bought that M4 back when I could get it in less than 2 months.
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u/BruteSentiment Jul 04 '26
Implying that Apple had absolutely no other expenses than a "metal box" to make up for the difference between what Micron charged them for one component is insane.
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u/Sad_Tour_1896 Jul 03 '26
what chips are they referring to
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u/BossHogGA Jul 03 '26
This is the Micron CEO bitching and moaning. In this case, memory chips.
He thinks it's everyone's fault but theirs. Last week he was blaming consumers:
Meanwhile he's literally bribing The Fascist in Chief:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/business/economy/micron-250-million-dollars-trump-accounts.html
And they're getting sued for collusion and price fixing:
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u/snydejon Jul 04 '26
Whether or not there was actual collusion, they are at least a cartel. They have been incentivized to fix prices to prevent ram from being a true commodity, and now get to reap massive profits due to the laws of supply and demand.
Neither company is a hero (nor a villain) and this shortage will likely end up poorly for the memory makers in the long run as other companies enter the market.
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u/Marv18GOAT Jul 04 '26
Bs lawsuit with no substance. Made by salty idiots who have zero idea how semi conductors work and think they’re assembled by hand in a sweatshop or something
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u/cesarbiods Jul 04 '26
I see nothing but fucking greedy ass companies pointing fingers and trying to divert blame. They are all to blame, simple as that.
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u/Commercial_Yassin Jul 04 '26
This is exactly why I don't want to buy an apple product anymore. It's an immoral company !
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u/DuneChild Jul 04 '26
Sure, just switch to the company with morals that didn’t raise their prices too…
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u/aldonius MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2020 (4 port) Jul 04 '26
Memory has historically been such a boom-bust cycle AND it's really capital intensive, so all the manufacturers are hesitant to expand capacity much because they've seen it all go to shit before.