Right, so here is something you probably did not want to read on a Monday morning. There is a growing chance Apple bumps up the price of the entire iPhone 17 lineup, and it could happen as soon as this month rather than waiting for the next generation to land.
This all kicked off after Tim Cook went on the record last week with The Wall Street Journal and basically admitted Apple can no longer keep eating the rising cost of memory and storage chips. Those are the same chips that AI and neocloud companies are hoovering up by the truckload as they race to build out more and more data centres. When demand goes through the roof like that, prices climb, and eventually that cost has to land somewhere. Right now it looks like it is going to land on us.
Here is the part that really stood out to me. Cook compared the current memory shortage to a once in a century flood, and said he has not seen anything like it in over 40 years of doing this. That is not the kind of language a CEO throws around casually. The whole AI buildout has people arguing over whether all those hundreds of billions of dollars will ever pay off, but in the meantime it is squeezing the entire semiconductor industry, and that squeeze is very real.
Apple is also not the first to blink here. Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, and Dell have all already nudged their prices up, so Apple following suit would not exactly be a shock.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reckons the timing of Cook’s comments is a pretty big tell, and thinks price hikes are imminent. He has also tied this to Apple’s upcoming Back to School sale. His theory is that Apple might roll the two out together so the promo softens the blow a little, almost like a buffer.
If you are not familiar with it, Apple runs a Back to School deal every June that throws in free accessories or a gift card when students and teachers buy a Mac or an iPad, on top of the usual education discount. It normally lands around WWDC, and in three of the last five years it has shown up 8 to 10 days after the keynote. Do the maths and that could mean we see it this week.
Either way, Gurman is clear that this is not something that holds off until the autumn. Translation: the price rises probably will not wait for the iPhone 18 Pro to launch later in the year. The phones sitting on shelves right now could get pricier before then, which is something Chinese supply chain leaker Ice Universe hinted at over the weekend too.
For reference, here is where iPhone pricing currently sits. The iPhone 17e starts at 599 dollars, the standard iPhone 17 at 799 dollars, and the iPhone Air at 999 dollars. Step up to the Pro models and you are looking at 1,099 dollars for the iPhone 17 Pro and 1,199 dollars for the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
And it might not stop there. The Wall Street Journal has run its own numbers and reckons the iPhone 18 Pro could start as high as 1,399 dollars when it eventually arrives. iPads and Macs could see increases in the near future as well.
So if you have had your eye on a new iPhone, it might be worth not sleeping on it. This is one of those rare moments where waiting could actually cost you more, not less.
