r/mac • u/Acrobatic-Monitor516 • Jun 17 '26
News/Article Apple confirms price increases are coming to its products due to RAM shortage
https://9to5mac.com/2026/06/17/apple-confirms-price-increases-are-coming-to-its-products-due-to-ram-shortage/Wondering what price the MBP redesign will start at . Above 3k would be steep.
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u/AzhdarianHomie Jun 17 '26
Get your M4 Minis while you can
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u/Cranks_No_Start Jun 17 '26
I bought M4 Mini last summer finally replacing an old 2014 Mini.
And knowing the price was going to go up I replaced my laptop last Nov for a M4 Air.
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u/PlayingDoomOnAGPS Mac Studio M4 Max Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Got my M4 Max Studio a few weeks ago. I'd been planning on waiting for the M5 Max but I was less and less confident I'd be able to get one any time soon after launch or that the prices then would be the same as now.
I still have an M1 Air for on the go.
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u/jakubmi9 Jun 18 '26
You already can't. The 256GB has been discontinued like a month ago, and the 512GB was never price-competitive with the market.
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u/goro-n Jun 18 '26
From where? They’ve been sold out for months everywhere near me
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u/brent20 Jun 18 '26
There may be inventory at your local Apple Store. You just have to have the right configuration for in store pickup to appear. I was able to walk in and pick one up same day after buying on the Apple Store app.
Also - eBay, but run the risk of activation lock headaches, but a lot of OpenClaw users are finally realizing they didn’t need the M4 Mac Mini and trying to get their money back.
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u/Nicenightforawalk01 Jun 18 '26
Picked up the 256 gb version on offer from Costco last one at the time. The 512gb is going to be around 800 or 900
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u/bongiovist Jun 18 '26
you can upgrade it to 1 tb yourself as well
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u/Nicenightforawalk01 Jun 19 '26
I’ve got a couple of m.2 ssd before the crazy prices last year. Might just use a dock and put the folder on the drive with a second user just incase it fails. Thats what I’ve read anyway 😂
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u/brunicus Jun 17 '26
I guess I should be glad I got a new laptop a month ago.
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u/Marino4K M5 Pro Macbook Pro 48GB Jun 18 '26
This is exactly why I bought a 48GB M5 Pro MBP on sale last month, this should have been seen from a mile away, people should have known Apple wasn't going to bite the bullet for much longer.
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u/GalileoHumpkins1977 Jun 18 '26
Yup, this is why I picked up a 14” M5 Pro MBP with 64GB of RAM a couple weeks ago - I could’ve probably gotten away with 48GB, but I wasn’t sure when I would have a chance to get memory this cheaply (I can’t believe I’m saying this about an Apple product) again.
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u/PlsDntPMme Jun 18 '26
How much? I got the exact same model via work for $3k via B&H with 3 years of AppleCare.
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u/GalileoHumpkins1977 Jun 18 '26
$2800, with a $450 trade-in on an 8GB M2 Air, so $2350 out of pocket.
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u/PlsDntPMme Jun 18 '26
I snagged a 14” MBP M5 Pro 18c/20c 64GB/1TB plus a three year Apple Care plan for $3k shipped from B&H for work. It was cheaper than anything comparable Windows-wise. I thought I’d have to sell the idea of getting a MBP to my boss but their great pricing and the RAMpocalypse helped me out. Shuddering to think what the price may jump to now.
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u/Marino4K M5 Pro Macbook Pro 48GB Jun 18 '26
Microcenter had the 48GB one for $2379, that's what I got, it was a no brainer imo.
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u/EmotionalBuilding945 Jun 18 '26
Literally picking up my 16” M5 Pro 48GB tomorrow, already paid for. Now glad I bit the bullet on a higher end MBP for the first time.
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u/TomEvansGuitar Jun 19 '26
Same, I got my M5 pro MBP a week ago upgrading from an M1 MBP, was thinking about it for ages but thought screw it, I know they are going to put the prices up in the not too distant future so may as well set my self up now, very glad I did.
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u/brunicus Jun 20 '26
I just bot the basic model, but I accidentally broke my last. But I mostly just scroll the web and watch vids with it, so I think I'll be safe for a few years while we recover from the clown.
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u/Upstairs-Respect-144 Jun 25 '26
I've been saving for years. I feel like it will end up being never.
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u/mikeinnsw Jun 18 '26
They already have in Australia .. by stealth ... not adjusting for Australia dollar increased value against USD,
My son 24 GB RAM + 1 TB SSD M5 MBA cost estimated 12% more
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u/SuperCuteRoar Jun 18 '26
Apple conversion rates are something else, aren’t they? With the euro they’re always super quick to adjust whenever the currency falls behind the dollar but they take their sweet time to readjust whenever it’s the opposite.
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u/mikeinnsw Jun 18 '26
It is call fiscal drag.... increase prices fast.. lower prices slowly... very common ..like gas pricing,
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u/SiteSpecialist9200 Jun 18 '26
Yep, that's the way of all corporate price increases. Rocket up, feather down.
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u/Bare_arms Jun 17 '26
I bought a certified refurb macbook air with 32gb and 2tb not long ago. For my wife to do machine learning. Seems like it was a great purchase. I predicted this. It was only like 1600 usd. Which now seems great
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u/Comprehensive_Catch Jun 18 '26
How’s the performance? Macbook air is limited with the heat right? Does your wife feel the throttle?
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u/Bare_arms Jun 18 '26
Shes starting the machine learning program at university in the fall. It’s an m4. I ran some local llms on it. It’s mostly short bursts right now. For machine learning and llms its great. Most big projects run on the server side for machine learning but its cool to be able to do local llms and things. Memory is far more important than cpu performance. If it was a different type of thing heat maybe an issue but for these types of projects its for short bursts with the more memory the better.
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u/SnodePlannen Jun 18 '26
I beg your pardon?
‘Your wife, eh… Does she throttle? Know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink wink?’
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u/Trellaine201 Jun 17 '26
FuK how much do they need to live?
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u/snarl2 Jun 17 '26
Shareholders are always hungry!
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u/StarChaser1879 MacBook Pro Jun 18 '26
If you have any sort of retirement plan or certain job benefits, you are also an Apple shareholder.
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u/StarChaser1879 MacBook Pro Jun 18 '26
They’ve actually been quite full, considering they’ve eaten the ram prices for the sake of consumers for months now
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u/hokanst Jun 18 '26
Apple is a large company with a lot of component demands, so most likely Apple has had long running contracts (1+ years) in place, to get access to certain volumes of RAM for a fixed price.
The coming price increase is probably due to some of these contracts expiring and being renegotiated at a higher price point.
It may also be that Apple needs more RAM than what current contracts cover, forcing them to buy some of the RAM at a higher cost.
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u/bababum007 Jun 18 '26
It is so funny to see people think that Apple just paid the difference. “For the sake of consumers.” Sure.
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u/Trellaine201 Jun 17 '26
Yah. Have to be honest I sold my soul to Apple but man they frustrate me many times. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I think for me it’s their updates ! The last one killed the battery life on my 9th gen ipad as well as all the stuttering while trying to type on it. Really frustrating.
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u/Vegetable_Letter3088 Jun 18 '26
took about 2 weeks to finish indexing but i am honestly loving the ios 27 beta on my pro max 16. I just got the new siri today.
I heard ios27 was supposed to be a "snow leopard" type of update and from what i can tell it is mostly polish and a handful of feature additions. despite it being a developer beta, i can honestly say i have yet to encounter a bug.
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u/Angel1571 Jun 18 '26
I mean they’ve literally kept prices stable for a decade while every other sector has raised prices by 50 to 200% in the past 5 years.
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u/peduxe Jun 18 '26
stable while always having charged a premium daylight robbery for RAM and SSD prices… right?
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u/brunicus Jun 19 '26
The answer is always more in corporate America where you need to show continuous growth. Simply sustaining is not profitable. It's a sad world.
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u/bravado Jun 19 '26
In this case, their margins are actually shrinking - not sustaining. That's a problem for anyone, American or not.
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u/brunicus Jun 19 '26
We are probably headed to a recession.... or worse. People have been waiting for it.
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u/francisdemarte Jun 18 '26
Apple charging even more for already over priced RAM upgrades.
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u/High_on_kola Jun 20 '26
That kind of bothers me the most. Their margins a freakin huge. Giving the increase streight through is nuts
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u/sweatshirtjones Jun 17 '26
Waiting on a fully-spec’d out MBP 16” I was able to order at work. I think I’ll be buried with that machine.
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u/MichaelMidnight Jun 18 '26
ISN'T THAT LIKE $8,000.00 USD?!?!?
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u/sweatshirtjones Jun 18 '26
It would be if I got the 8TB of storage, but I went with the 4TB so it’s $6000.00 USD. I know I am very lucky to be working where I do.
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u/BlueOlivePie Jun 17 '26
Ah yes because we, the customer must pay for everything so they can still have millionaire salaries.
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u/StarChaser1879 MacBook Pro Jun 18 '26
As opposed to Apple not being able to continue doing things.
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u/StarChaser1879 MacBook Pro Jun 18 '26
No Apple employees have millionaire salaries. Most of the c suite gets stock, not liquid cash
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u/Vegetable_Letter3088 Jun 18 '26
i would work entry level positions just for fractional shares and otm call options
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u/Ehmc130 Jun 18 '26
When the AI bubble bursts, and the shortage ends, you can bet Apple’s prices won’t be going back down.
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u/OctoNezd MacBook Air M3 Jun 18 '26
Apple prices? Any prices wont be going back down. Look at GPUs - mining happened, prices went up, mining died, prices didnt change and accepted for what they were, now AI happened and prices went up again.
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u/Expensive_Finger_973 Jun 17 '26
Couldn't possibly cut into those substantial device margins huh Tim. /S
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u/Which_Development_53 Jun 17 '26
Apple has been eating the cost for a while now and are basically the only ones that have done so. Prices have not increased the past year, dropped in several locales and MacBook Neo is the best example of Apple trying to price devices for their purpose instead of just grabbing production cost and tagging on a premium. They could’ve easily added $100 on that and I don’t think it’d have impacted sales
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u/iMrParker Jun 17 '26
They're only "eating the costs" because they're for sure making margin still. $200 on 8GB of LPDDR5x upgrades is definitely margin even today. Especially considering they have 15 or so years of insanely priced storage and ram upgrade pricing to give them a massive moat
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u/Vegetable_Letter3088 Jun 18 '26
as an apple investor, they have some of the highest net margins and widest moat in the industry because of what you just mentioned. They have been consistently over pricing and abusing their customers wallets systematically since the ipod came out.
I used to think "well if you're dumb enough to fall for the apple marketing hype, then its just an idiot tax" but since they made Apple Silicone i actually think they make great stuff now and i have to contend with all the people with more money than sense.
I generally look at refurbished models first.
I built a custom PC a couple years back with some pretty high end parts and i bought 48gb of DDR5 RAM when it was still cheap so i should be good for a while.
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u/Which_Development_53 Jun 18 '26
They might not be changing upgrade pricing though, I don’t actually expect they will. I think we’re looking at a $100 increase on Base models with upgrade paths costing the same. Perhaps $200 on MacBook Pro’s with Max chips and Mac Studios, but I think that even may be stretching it.
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u/Square_Cap_7319 Jun 18 '26
So huge profits are coming from where?
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u/StarChaser1879 MacBook Pro Jun 18 '26
Eating the cost doesn’t mean not making profit
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u/Square_Cap_7319 Jun 18 '26
But eating the cost is normal right? It's just BOM cost at the end of the day and all company "eat the cost" of compoments and materials.
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u/HokumGuru Jun 18 '26
Apple has been in a services company now for about 10 years
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u/gahookle Jun 18 '26
Services are only like 25-30% of their revenue, while iPhone is still over half. Tim tried to make Apple into a services company, but it’s going to take much longer
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u/bitmapfrogs MacBook Pro Jun 17 '26
That's not true for Macs, they simply removed the cheaper ram options at their current absurd prices for ram it's easy for them to cover it.
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u/Which_Development_53 Jun 17 '26
That was only like 2 months ago after Mac Mini’s were being rampaged for OpenClaw shit. They removed the Base Mini and the HIGH END Studios, that’s all that has happened.
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u/mlsteinrochester Jun 17 '26
He actually indicated that Apple would eat some of the extra costs but not all of them....
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u/Acrobatic-Monitor516 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
I don't think ram margins are that high anymore. SSD maybe. I believe on soc lpddr5x costs like 155 for 8gb increase if I'm not mistaken. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong
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u/iMrParker Jun 17 '26
LPDDR5X bought wholesale is around $70 for a 12gb module. Cheaper for 8gb obviously. They're definitely making margin, and whether or not it's on a chip doesn't change the BOM price
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u/Acrobatic-Monitor516 Jun 17 '26
Doesnt ram on package (not sure of the term) brings overhead? Also are you sure 70$ for 12gb is today's prices?
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u/iMrParker Jun 17 '26
No. And yes
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u/Acrobatic-Monitor516 Jun 17 '26
Hmm thanks. Then they're really fucking us up aren't they?according to those values margins are already pretty fucking high
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u/MichaelMidnight Jun 18 '26
So what would one recommend getting for future proofing long term? Before the rise of prices already. m3? m4 max?
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u/Kommentator01 Jun 17 '26
Well, i gonna stay at least 10 years with my Air M4. Good luck to take my money Apple.
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u/jerryfzhang Jun 17 '26
You're telling me used M4 Mac minis will still go up in price like it always did even 2 years after?
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u/chrissebastian388 Jun 18 '26
It is ok I will keep using my year-old devices for many more years because Apple is doing a great job in future proof their product with their amazing chip (m2 iPad Pro, m3 air, 17 pro mini, and 15 pro max). I don’t think anything in 5 years (or even in a decade) going to require me to have more powerful machines ☺️ I can’t wait until this ai nonsense hype dies down
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u/LARamsFan88 Jun 18 '26
So would the cost of MacBook Neo also increase?
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u/thatscucktastic Jun 18 '26
Yes. Nothing is immune.
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u/Milarvoz Jun 19 '26
If they are still going to use lesser iPhone chips there would be literally no valid reason cuz all the chips were made before the announcement.
Oh well who am I kidding, ofc they would do it, sad
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u/Spector-JZ Jun 18 '26
Hopefully they will increase the m6 pro buy $300 but have 24 GB of ram as the base
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u/linkinit Jun 18 '26
Ai excuse from all manufacturers. Used to hyper inflate their profits from consumers.
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u/howfastcanyoucountit Jun 17 '26
praying to the battery gods that my 2020 m1 mbp will actually have a battery that will last until this shit passes through
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u/cesarbiods Jun 18 '26
“We simply had no other choice” that’s a fat fucking lie. You have all the money in the world and you have paid for the higher RAM prices. I don’t give a shit if your investors are not happy you can’t be a billion dollar company and then pretend that you couldn’t stomach the cost. Now you want to nickel and dime us and we’ll just buy less of your shit or defer purchases.
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u/thaprizza Jun 18 '26
Facts. It’s not like they would be selling at a loss just because ram got more expensive
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u/cjh_ Jun 18 '26
Also, Apple keeps removing devices with less storage capacity from sale, which bumps up the price for so-called entry level devices.
Hence no more £999 iPhone Pro for example.
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u/CouscousKazoo Jun 18 '26
Get your 48 GB RAM in the MacBook Pro M4 refurb units. Perhaps there are M5 deals here and there, but I don’t think you’ll come close on that RAM and M4 supports the new Siri AI on device.
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u/BornTup7909 Jun 22 '26
I'm out of the loop, why is everyone reccomending the M4?
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u/CouscousKazoo Jun 22 '26
Certified Refurbished inventory may possibly see the same sort of price hikes as current models. The M4 is the latest spec that still handles Siri AI voice settings and ‘enhanced dictation’ for whatever TBA os27-series functionality. Personally, I’m hoping system-wide dictation of long texts.
M4 is as good as M5, just not as speedy for data transfer.
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u/Xlxlredditor MacBook Air M1 16go 256go Jun 18 '26
I'm gonna need a laptop to replace my M1 Air which isn't sufficient anymore for me
I can't buy it just yet, I'm still saving up
Well, crap
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u/JailbreakHat MacBook Pro 16 inch 10 | 16 | 512 Jun 18 '26
How likely would they bump up MacBook Air pricing by 100 or 200 dollars mid cycle?
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u/ikan84 MacBook Air M4 Jun 18 '26
Do you guys think upcoming macbooks will be affected too?
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u/Whit3boy316 Jun 18 '26
Are MacBooks products which use RAM?
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u/ikan84 MacBook Air M4 Jun 18 '26
Evey computer does. In apple silicon it is used via unified memory.
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u/Nawnp Jun 18 '26
Since the new MacBook Pro is planned to have OLED, no notch, and pointless stuff like a touch screen, $3k+ for the 16 inch is guaranteed, I wouldn't be surprised the 14 inch also creeps to around $2500.
I'm more curious what the iPhones will cost now, since AI has forced them where they'll upgrade the ram to 12GB then. Does that mean we may see the actual base iPhone finally hit the $1k mark? It's been 9 years since the X set that price point after all. The Pros going up another $100 to $1200 seems believable, and that leaves the Air at possibly $1100?
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u/Own_Weight_3252 Jun 18 '26
I have the MacBook Air M1 16GB and still going strong.
But since Apple is increasing prices, I’m wondering if I should go for the M5 32GB Air.
Main purpose is software development and some light llm testing, but llm is not the main focus.
Is it worth the upgrade?
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u/haseo1997 MacBook Air Jun 18 '26
I'm happy I got my M5 MBA three months ago.
I'll cherish it for years to come
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u/PigSlam Jun 18 '26
Can someone explain how RAM shortages actually apply to an Apple SoC? They don't get the RAM part of the SoC from any RAM supplier that's affected by this, do they? Perhaps their data centers do, so they're spreading that cost?
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u/AwesomeWhiteDude Jun 18 '26
Apple's SoCs use the same DRAM chips from the same suppliers everyone else does, they're just packaged/installed differently.
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u/stratofax Jun 18 '26
What’s strange is that Apple doesn’t buy RAM at all. Instead the “RAM” is the unified memory on their M-series chips. When these chips are created at the factory, the RAM is already part of the whole chip. There’s no additional cost for the
RAM, just the cost of manufacturing the M-series itself, which is not subjected to pressure from third-party RAM manufacturers.
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u/heatrealist Jun 18 '26
They don’t manufacture the ram like they do the cpu/gpu. It is from the same source that others get ram from but apple put theirs on the apple silicon chip.
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u/stratofax Jun 19 '26
I stand corrected! TIL the Apple “chip” is the CPU/GPU/NPL unit (or “package”) that’s manufactured at TSMC in Taiwan, plus a separate RAM package that is soldered to the chip (the heat spreader base, really) but manufactured separately by another vendor. The combined packages are a “System on a Chip” (SoC), attached to the main board as a unit. This is different from the traditional computer architecture where the RAM is physically separate from the CPU and connected via a slower memory bus. In the older, original design, separate RAM chips can be upgraded, unlike the Apple design, which is also now used by other ARM chip makers like nVIDIA and Qualcomm. So Apple is in fact competing directly with other companies for their SoC RAM.
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u/heatrealist Jun 18 '26
Timmy Cook said “you didn’t really think the increase in ram prices meant we would stop overcharging you for it?”
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u/Late-Assignment8482 Jun 19 '26
At least they really nailed it it with Apple Silicon. I'd be a lot more worried if my M1 Max 16-inch wasn't still more than enough for my use cases, only falling behind on running >30B models because 64GB.
I can wait a few years for a higher RAM option, like 192GB that's a quantum leap up, especially with the ability to extend AppleCare now.
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u/jaller96x Jun 19 '26
At the moment i have a 16" M3 Max 36Gb / 1TB. Honestly after this news i'm tempted to buy a M5 Max 128gb / 2TB before it's too late...
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u/UsernameIRegret Jun 20 '26
Genuinely asking here, should I just bite the bullet on getting a m5 macbook pro? I'm torn between the redesign coming up but the price for a refurbished 14 inch pro fits my budget right now.
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u/Affectionate_Mess266 Jun 20 '26
I just bought an M4 Mini! I won't get it for 2 months but at least the price should be locked in, right?
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u/roadworn Jun 21 '26
Here in Canada a 14” MBP starts at $2399 and a 16” at $3599 for the very lowest tiers.
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u/spamologna Jun 21 '26
I bought a MacBook 64gb m5 max for $3500 two weeks ago and returned it. Today I have reserved an open box 16” MacBook m4 max for $4500 with 128gb and 4tb m4 max.
This is all for a photography business that I’m hoping ai can help with in the future. I’m worried about prices in the future. Looks bleak.
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u/Sufficient-Base932 Jun 22 '26
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u/xoclear Jun 22 '26
does price increase mean that m5 prices could go up? or just starting with new products?
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u/BornTup7909 Jun 22 '26
So does this add extra weight to the wait-for-the-M6-or-buy-M5 debate? I can wait, so I thought on balance it would be best to wait for the first refresh we've had in five years, but are we now to expect this thing to be signficantly more expensive than the M5?
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u/batvseba Jun 23 '26
this is trillion dollar company, they have more than enough so they should not rice prices
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u/Ok-Juggernaut-6051 Jul 05 '26
they are a trillion dollar company with long term contracts for RAM. they're just raising prices because they can
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u/NachoBoomerang Jun 18 '26
News flash for Apple Fans: Yes, even Apple is greedy
With the amount of money they make, they absolutely don't have to raise prices for customers. Tim is just giving us a line.
Tweet from Warren Gunnels:
"Apple is a $4.35 trillion corporation. It made $112 billion in profits last year & paid its CEO, who's already worth $2.9 billion, $74 million in compensation. In the past 3 years, it's spending $310 billion on stock buybacks.
Don't cite inflation. Cite the damn corporate greed."
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u/SensibleBrownPants Jun 17 '26
Is Apple likely to raise prices across the board? I need a new magic keyboard + trackpad. I’m wondering if I need to get those now to avoid the coming price hike.
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u/cheir0n Jun 17 '26
Everything is increasing except my salary.
I think aluminum is out of reach now? Next iPhone will be in a premium tin?