Tim Cook Says Apple Will Raise Prices to Cover Memory Costs

Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal this week that Apple can no longer absorb rising memory and storage costs and will begin passing those increases to customers. “Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” Cook said, adding that Apple has been “trying to shield our customers from the increases” but the situation has become “unsustainable.”

What Cook did not say is arguably as telling as what he did. He declined to name specific products or price increases, leaving the timing and scope open. The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, expected in September, are the most obvious candidates, and iPads and Macs could follow at some unspecified point.

Apple has already moved quietly on one product. The Mac mini’s entry price climbed from $599 to $799 when the company eliminated its lowest-tier configuration, a method that raises the effective floor without changing a sticker price on an existing SKU. It is a cleaner approach than announcing a price hike, but the result for buyers is the same.

Why memory costs are climbing

The memory market is under sustained pressure, driven in large part by demand from hyperscalers building out AI infrastructure. Apple is not the only hardware company absorbing these costs, but its tight vertical integration and premium positioning mean customers have historically been insulated longer than buyers of competing hardware. That insulation, Cook is now saying, has run out.

The broader Apple Intelligence push across the device lineup requires more on-device RAM than previous generations, which makes the timing of a memory cost spike particularly awkward. Apple is trying to sell customers on a hardware upgrade cycle tied to AI features while simultaneously warning that those upgrades will cost more.

Cook’s comments stop well short of a price schedule, which gives Apple flexibility but also gives consumers very little to plan around before the fall lineup arrives.