Apple just did something it almost never does: raised prices across a wide swath of its product lineup. On June 25, the company announced sweeping increases on Mac and iPad models, citing soaring memory and storage chip costs fueled by insatiable AI demand. The cheapest MacBook Air now costs $200 more than it did last week.
CEO Tim Cook called the memory shortage a “hundred-year flood,” describing it as unprecedented in his 40-plus years in the industry.
The damage, model by model
The entry-level MacBook Air with 512 GB of storage jumped from $1,099 to $1,299. That’s an 18% increase on what has traditionally been Apple’s most accessible laptop.
At the high end, some Mac Studio configurations with the M3 Ultra chip saw price hikes of up to $1,300.
