The MacRumors Show: iPhone 18 Pro Has a Pricing Problem
On this week's episode of
The MacRumors Show, we discuss potential price rises for the
iPhone 18 lineup following Apple's
wave of hikes yesterday, as well as plans for the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and camera-equipped AirPods.
Apple yesterday raised prices across most of its lineup, including
HomePod mini,
HomePod,
Apple TV, the entire
iPad line, the entire Mac line, and Vision Pro, following CEO
Tim Cook's warning to
The Wall Street Journal that hikes were "unavoidable" due to soaring memory and storage chip costs. Apple's online store was briefly
taken offline before returning with the
new pricing, with increases ranging from $30 on the HomePod mini to $1,300 on the high end
Mac Studio, averaging $246.67 across the affected products.
The iPhone, AirPods,
Studio Display, Apple Watch, and accessories such as the
Apple Pencil appear to be the only product lines left unaffected. Separately, the 256GB
Mac mini has returned to the lineup after disappearing earlier this year, now priced at $799, which is a $200 increase over its earlier price.
The same pressure is likely to hit the
iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, which were already speculated to cost more than their predecessors before yesterday's increases. Speaking with the
Wall Street Journal,
Cook acknowledged Apple isn't immune to these cost pressures, and said clarity on iPhone pricing would come with the lineup's September launch.
Citing research firm TechInsights, the
Wall Street Journal reported that DRAM and flash storage costs are projected to roughly quadruple by fall, pushing the
iPhone 17 Pro's bill of materials from about $582 up 25% to around $726 for its successor. TechInsights has
said Apple would need to raise the
iPhone 18 Pro's price by about $270 to preserve current margins, though Apple's preference for standardized pricing makes a $1,299 starting price more likely on its own.
Factoring in the new camera system, which analyst
Ming-Chi Kuo says could cost about 50% more than the previous generation, the
Wall Street Journal estimates Apple could ultimately set the iPhone 18 Pro's starting price at $1,399 or higher, a $200 to $300 jump over the current model, with the
iPhone 18 Pro Max likely starting $100 above that.
The iPhone 18 Pro is rumored to keep the iPhone 17 Pro's aluminum build, with four new colors including Dark Cherry, a muted wine-red expected to be the signature shade. As with last year, there's likely no true black option. Weibo leaker
Fixed Focus Digital recently
warned the new colors could be prone to the same chipping and surface issues seen on last year's Cosmic Orange and Dark Blue, which Apple reportedly treats as a material characteristic rather than a defect.
The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are expected to launch in September alongside Apple's first foldable iPhone, the "
iPhone Ultra." Shipping could slip slightly later for the foldable. A Chinese leaker recently
said any gap would be at most a month, and
Bloomberg's
Mark Gurman has
reported the device remains on track for September, after Barclays analyst Tim Long earlier suggested shipments could slip to December. The foldable is expected to feature a 7.8-inch inner display, 5.5-inch cover display, the A20 chip and C2 modem,
Touch ID instead of
Face ID, two rear cameras, and a
starting price of at least $2,000.
Gurman recently
reported that the
Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Apple Watch Series 12 will launch alongside the new iPhones. Little is known about the devices, though a faster chip seems highly likely given that both the Series 11 and Ultra 3 stuck with the S10 from the previous year.
watchOS 27 will likely add new watch faces, including a variant of the Modular Ultra face.
For 2027, Apple is developing
camera-equipped AirPods. The cameras, embedded in the AirPods' stems, are not designed for taking photos or video, and will instead feed information about the wearer's surroundings to
Siri, which will be able to answer questions about objects and whatever the wearer is looking at, alongside contextual reminders and improved turn-by-turn directions. An included light will indicate to people nearby when the cameras are active. The AirPods were originally targeted for a 2026 launch, but Apple's broader AI struggles and the need to develop reliable object-identification models apparently pushed the timeline back.
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previous episode of The MacRumors Show, catch up to hear our further discussion about
WWDC 2026 and
iOS 27,
macOS Golden Gate, and Apple's other new software updates coming this fall.
Subscribe to The MacRumors Show for new episodes every week, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on
MacRumors, often joined by interesting guests such as
Kayci Lacob,
Kevin Nether,
John Gruber,
Mark Gurman,
Jon Prosser,
Luke Miani,
Matthew Cassinelli,
Brian Tong,
Quinn Nelson,
Jared Nelson,
Eli Hodapp,
Mike Bell,
Sara Dietschy,
iJustine,
Jon Rettinger,
Andru Edwards,
Arnold Kim,
Ben Sullins,
Marcus Kane,
Christopher Lawley,
Frank McShan,
David Lewis,
Tyler Stalman,
Sam Kohl,
Federico Viticci,
Thomas Frank,
Jonathan Morrison,
Ross Young,
Ian Zelbo, and
Rene Ritchie.
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