{"id":285059,"date":"2026-07-02T13:47:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/america-is-having-macbook-sticker-shock\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T16:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T20:00:12","slug":"america-is-having-macbook-sticker-shock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/america-is-having-macbook-sticker-shock\/","title":{"rendered":"America Is Having MacBook Sticker Shock"},"content":{"rendered":"

America Is Having MacBook Sticker Shock<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/2026\/07\/apple-prices-macbook-memory-shortage\/687781\/?utm_sourceu003dfeed<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-07-02 13:47:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.theatlantic.com<\/a><\/p>\n

There are many things you can buy for $10,000: A nose job. With luck, a used car. A middling ticket to the World Cup final. Or you could purchase a MacBook Pro. That\u2019s how much the highest-end, fully loaded version of Apple\u2019s laptop now costs\u2014$3,000 more than it did last week.<\/p>\n

Maybe you don\u2019t need the most powerful MacBook Pro. But last Thursday, Apple announced price hikes on most of its products. Apple\u2019s cheapest laptop, the MacBook Neo, debuted for $600 just a few months ago. Now it\u2019s less of a steal at $700. Apple\u2019s base tablet model costs 30 percent more. Although iPhones are the same price (for now), every Mac and iPad model is now more expensive. So are other gadgets: Even the HomePod mini, a smart speaker that debuted six years ago, will set you back an extra $30. The day the new prices hit Apple\u2019s website, people ran to Costco and Best Buy hoping to take advantage of some lag between the new and old world.<\/p>\n

The products are more expensive because they now cost more to make. Specifically, one particular component has become considerably more expensive: RAM, short for \u201crandom-access memory.\u201d RAM is essential in practically every electronic device. It\u2019s what allows you to toggle between the 30 different tabs you might have open right now. And this year, the price of RAM has quadrupled.<\/p>\n

Blame the AI boom. Data centers use a gargantuan amount of memory chips. Amid the frenzied AI build-out, the world doesn\u2019t have enough to go around. In a statement issued the day of the price increases, Apple wrote that \u201cthe rapid expansion of AI data centers\u201d had forced its hand: \u201cWe have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.\u201d Seemingly every laptop maker has already jacked up prices at this point. In October, Microsoft raised Xbox prices by up to $70; last week, the company announced another $100 hike. The effects of the memory shortage extend beyond laptops and gaming consoles. A coalition of trade groups recently wrote…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America Is Having MacBook Sticker Shock https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/2026\/07\/apple-prices-macbook-memory-shortage\/687781\/?utm_sourceu003dfeed Publish Date: 2026-07-02 13:47:00 Source Domain: www.theatlantic.com There…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":285060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.theatlantic.com\/thumbor\/JkFhc5pyGfJ9t3e4czRmTrUKzfk=\/0x43:2000x1085\/1200x625\/media\/img\/mt\/2026\/07\/2026_06_30_Kiros_10k_macbook_final\/original.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[51],"class_list":["post-285059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-macintosh","tag-macbook-pro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285059"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285061,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285059\/revisions\/285061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}