Apple customers should brace for higher prices. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, according to Engadget, outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that price increases are coming. “Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” Cook told the publication. “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.”
Cook stopped short of naming specific numbers or timelines, but the direction is clear. With WWDC 2026 now behind us, Apple is only a few months away from announcing the iPhone 18 lineup. Those devices will almost certainly cost more than their predecessors. The same likely applies to any new laptops and tablets Apple releases this year. And with component supply still under pressure, even Apple’s current product lineup could see price bumps before the year is out.
The root cause is a global shortage of RAM and storage, driven largely by surging demand from AI development. Cook put it plainly: “There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases. We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That’s the bottom line.”
Cook also gave some sense of how unusual this moment is. “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years,” he said. That’s a striking statement from someone who has watched the tech industry through multiple supply chain crises, chip shortages, and economic downturns. It signals that this isn’t a short-term blip that Apple expects to quietly absorb.
There’s also a timing element worth noting. Cook is stepping down, with John Ternus set to take over as CEO. By getting ahead of this story now, Cook is arguably absorbing the public backlash himself rather than leaving his successor to deliver the bad news on day one. It’s a diplomatic move, and very much in keeping with Cook’s style throughout his tenure.
Apple is far from alone here. Several major tech companies have already flagged the same problem over the past few months:
- Samsung
- HP
- Microsoft
- Nintendo
- Valve
All of them have pointed to the same combination of tight memory supply and steep cost increases from manufacturers. The pattern is consistent enough that some in the industry have started calling it “RAMageddon.”
For consumers, the practical takeaway is straightforward. If you were planning to buy a new iPhone, Mac, or iPad this year, expect to pay more than you did for the previous generation. How much more remains unclear, but Cook’s language, words like “huge” and “unsustainable,” suggests the increases won’t be minor.