Months before the iPhone 18 drops, the news isn’t pretty. Tim Cook says prices are going up.
He told the WSJ it is unavoidable.
Costs for memory and storage chips have skyrocketed. Cook claims the company has been shielding customers until now, but the dam has burst.
“We’ve been trying to shield our consumers… the situation has become unsustainable.”
Unsustainable.
Look at the math. The original iPhone cost $399 back in 2007. That 8GB beast? Today that buys you… well, not an iPhone 18 Pro Max. Rumors have a foldable model hitting shelves near $2,000. From $637 (adjusted) to double grand. The leap is absurd.
But here is the kicker. The price hike doesn’t start with Cook. It lands just as he walks out the door. John Ternus takes over on September 1. Cook steps down, the chips stay expensive. Timing? Or coincidence? You decide.
And what’s driving it? Not Apple’s greed, strictly speaking. AI.
Artificial intelligence eats hardware for breakfast. Those massive new data centers draining lakes and burning electricity also guzzle memory. They want the exact same storage chips you want for your photos and your videos.
Supply is tight. Demand is a black hole.
Every Apple device needs these chips. Your laptop, your watch, your phone. There just aren’t enough of them. The AI boom stole the inventory. So we pay. Or we wait.
