Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

Post by Kirby64 » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 7:05 PM UTC

timacles wrote: post #337

hibikir wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is an average of many things. Computer components have a huge spike in demand with insufficient increase in supply, which is going to lag for years, so we might as well be buying at auction. It's not a price that flows through the entire economy, like the price of oil. So yes, inflation on average is nowhere near as high as in RAM prices.

You really believe food, gas and house prices are not increasing at the same amount? Some day we will look back and think about how dumb we were to allow them to lie to us about what inflation really is

Post by frollogaston » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 7:06 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #153

cryo32 wrote: post #140

I suspect that these prices are going to seriously dent sales. RAM is getting crushed. I bet the next step is going to be dumb terminals and centralisation onto all the hardware that the cloud companies bought up for AI and found wasn't possible to get any ROI out. Bezos was all over that already. We are truly entering the dark ages of personal computing.

I know some organisations were already moving to thin clients last year. Citing cutting costs and improving security (the data doesn't stay in employee's laptop and all access to virtual desktop is thoroughly centrally logged). Massive pushback (lagging, accessibility issues, slow) from workers was ignored and many people quit.

Post by platevoltage » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 7:08 PM UTC

snootypoot wrote: post #321

jacobgold wrote: post #274

Some 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.

its worth noting that you were much less restricted with this 6k computer in 1996. today we are paying ever more for walled gardens that will eventually become nothing more than a portal to cloud services. we are not returning to a previous position, we are moving to a world where everything will be a thin client.

Post by mmcnl » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 7:12 PM UTC

Matl wrote: post #51

TalkingCodeMonk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a dozen companies are allowed to buy up the entire global supply of core components, and increase the cost of living for every human on Earth, is full blown dystopian.

That's why some regulation is not the enemy of the people that some want to make it out to be. Unfortunately, I think regulatory capture is so deep now in most places, one can hardly expect anyone to do anything about it.

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 7:12 PM UTC

tyre wrote: post #537

j1elo wrote: post #413

Earlier 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…

I don't think your average consumer has any idea how memory works, which apps are using it, or what a "reasonable" consumption is for a given task. If things don't work, they will blame the computer. Developers will check and see that their electron app is only using 5GB of memory. They will test on 32GB memory M5 MBPs. Complaints to support will lead to recommendations to kill other apps. What would make change is i…