Apple just announced unprecedented price increases for the majority of its product lineup, with only iPhone and Apple Watch not yet seeing a price hike. This is because of the AI-driven memory crisis, caused by AI data centers buying up loads of memory supply, putting tons of pressure on the market.

Apple tried to hold out for quite a while, but the situation got out of hand. It’s worth noting that these memory pressures have existed for the entirety of the year, and it’s only now getting to the point where it’s unsustainable. Nonetheless, we’ll be diving into the why of it all, and when you should expect things to get better.

Memory supply pressures

As outlined by outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple simply couldn’t sustain its existing prices anymore with the sudden surges:

“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” he said. “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”

As mentioned earlier, this has been exclusively caused by the construction of gigantic AI data centers, which have put tremendous pressure on memory supply. For instance, 32GB of DDR5 memory has essentially quadrupled in price in the past year, with a 6000MHz kit that used to cost under $90 now going for nearly $400.

That’s just to give an idea of consumer pricing – which isn’t necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison. Apple uses higher-end memory, and also has added cost from the complexity that comes from soldering it onto the die of the chipset, rather than having it be a separate component.

Will it get better?

At some point, yes, it’ll get better – but it’s hard to say how long it’ll take.

Micron, a leading memory supplier, has started building a couple new memory fabs across the US, and they’re expected to start coming online over the next couple years – with the final one being up and running by 2030. They’re just one supplier, but any additional supply will help tremendously.

Apple, on the other hand, has started a new lobbying effort to compel the US government to allow them to do business with a handful of currently-blacklisted Chinese memory suppliers. Apple technically isn’t blocked from buying this memory, but it’d be a massive issue with government officials using Apple devices. If Apple had additional memory supply that wasn’t highly sought after by AI hyperscalers, this could make a difference in the near future.

Otherwise, the primary hope is just that AI buildout slows down. At the moment, things are likely to continue to get worse before they get better. In Q3 and Q4 of 2026, a quarter-over-quarter increase of 30-50% is expected. Apple has already hinted that there may be more price increases in the future, though it’s possible they’re only referring to products that haven’t already had price increases.

Overall, I’d say expect a rough 2-4 years, unless Apple succeeds in their efforts to utilize Chinese memory. It’ll still be rough, but maybe we can see some slight reductions if that pans out.

What you can do

At this point, all I can say is that if you want something new, you’re probably better off buying it now, and I’d also recommend warning people around you. Of course, if your device works fine, then don’t rush into upgrading just because of a medium-term price increase.

For the meanwhile, Amazon is still selling existing inventory of Mac and iPad at lower prices. These prices aren’t as low as they were on Prime Day, but they’re still much lower than the new prices after the official hikes. I’ll list out some of the deals below.

Mac:

iPad:

It does really suck looking at all of these much higher prices, especially given that Apple had largely become one of the best value options on the market over the past year. Of course, these price hikes aren’t in a vacuum, and the rest of the industry will deal with the memory crisis as well.

My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:

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