Mac Studio Desktop, M3 Ultra Processor, 96GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Silver up by £1100 (£4,199.00 -> £5,299.00)
Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
651–660 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#652Some unc perspective: I paid ~$6,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars for a computer in 1996. Today, I can get the same power in a $6 single board computer. A powerful modern mini PC starts at ~$600. However painful these price hikes are, and they are painful, it is worth remembering that computing has become incredibly ubiquitous and cheap.
And yet in some ways, modern computers feel slower than those from decades ago. Software today is so, so much less efficient than it was back then.
Well I had to move music off a 10 year old laptop and I can assure you things aren't slower in the ways that matter. It was borderline unusable. I am happy with SSDs and not getting viruses off of websites, personally.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#653This is just pure greed. There is a memory chips shortage and it’s partly due to high demand, but at the same time the manufacturers trying to squeeze as much profit they can while the demand last without investing on increasing the manufacturing capacity. Apple already have such high profit margins and I’m pretty sure the next iPhones would be priced 100-200$ extra
> This is just pure greed Well, pure capitalism. I suppose the terms are synonymous, though.
Pretty sure greed existed long before capitalism was a twinkle in any economist's eye. The East India Company was rapacious and evil and full of greed. But it was mercantilist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#654Earlier quoted context omitted.
RAM prices started climbing more than 18 months ago. Apple’s contracts are long-term but not that long-term: they probably just expired. (If you assume a 3-year contract, 18 months is how long it would take on average for a specific market shock to hit you)
That's a double edged sword. Assuming it's an 18 month contract, even when ram prices do go back to "normal" it's a year and a half until Apple has savings to pass onto to customers.
If Apple knows it's been overpaying, you can be sure that they will leverage that in future negotiations.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#655Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well Conversely, in 1996 you, your spouse, your kids, didnt need a pc to live your lives - having a pc or mac was something of a luxury Today smartphones, laptops and the internet are the base currency of the digital world - theres a reason Apple is so wealthy
> having a pc or mac was something of a luxury Apple products are still luxury items. A cheap phone and a chromebook can replace most of the "base currency" features that you get when you buy Apple.
The MacBook Neo (at least pre announcement) was a better value than anything else, including a chromebook.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#656These are the price changes mentioned in the article: Macs MacBook Neo: $699 (up from $599) 13-inch MacBook Air: $1,299 (up from $1,099) 15-inch MacBook Air: $1,499 (up from $1,299) M5 MacBook Pro: $1,999 (up from $1,699) M5 Pro MacBook Pro: $2,499 (up from $2,199) M5 Max MacBook Pro: $4,099 (up from $3,599) iMac: $1,499 (up from $1,299) M4 Max Mac Studio: $2,499 (up from $1,999) M3 Ultra Mac Studio: $5,299 (up from…
Some very steep price rises here!
I would have thought with Apple’s scale they would have much of their memory purchases locked in to long-term supply contracts that would insulate them somewhat from the market, but I guess that isn’t the case. Either that or they’re just taking advantage of the situation to juice their profits!
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#657Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm still using ~10 year old PCs at both work and home. Running linux, still doing fine.
Yep. My gaming desktop is an old Ryzen 5, 48GB DDR4 RAM and an old nvidia 1660 super. Plays every game I want to play just fine still at 1080p, and even a few modern titles no problem. Most of my library can be played natively at 1440p too with some settings adjustments. I suspect I can get a good 8-10 more years of use out of it, assuming components don't fail.
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Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#658Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, Microsoft announced their third XBox price hike today. > The price of XBOX consoles will increase by US$100 for 512 GB models and US$150 for 1 TB models. We will also be sunsetting our 2 TB model. https://kotaku.com/xbox-price-increase-2026-tariffs-buy-now-... This is in addition to the other two recent price hikes.
And it isn’t the 1st time they increased it, also PlayStation. Microsoft said ram/storage increased prices 2.5x since late 25 and they expect it to increase another 2.5x by late 27.
Microsoft should tell OpenAI to stop it
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#659Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the absurd memory prices might have some positive outcome, it will be consumers demanding that all their basic pack of apps are able to run on 16 and even 8 GB of RAM, by means of avoiding those that hog their machines. And consequently (hopefully), developers and their managers being incentivized by market forces to have a modicum of care for performance and not wasting bytes. Dreaming is free... All Electron dev…
RAM prices won’t stay like this forever. If demand keeps up, suppliers will just start producing more.
Suppliers have ceased to exist in the past decades for building up fabs to satisfy demand and by the time they went online prices cratered. I’d assume is even riskier and more expensive now.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
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