Apple’s online store went dark for a few hours, and when it came back up, nothing was the same. The MacBook Neo, once Apple’s boldest pricing move at $599, now starts at $699 – a $100 jump that signals the end of a brief era of affordable Apple laptops. The MacBook Neo Apple prices are just the tip of the iceberg. The company has raised the cost of virtually every Mac, iPad, HomePod, Apple TV, and even the Vision Pro headset in one sweeping move.
What went up and by how much
The 13-inch M5 MacBook Air climbs from $1,099 to $1,299, while the 15-inch version goes from $1,299 to $1,499. The 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro, which started at $1,699, now opens at $1,999. The 16-inch M5 Pro MacBook Pro moves from $2,499 to $2,999. At the top of the Mac lineup, the Mac Studio now starts at $2,499 (up from $1,999), and a fully loaded 16-inch MacBook Pro with maximum memory and storage reaches $9,999. The Vision Pro headset, already a niche product at $3,499, now retails from $3,699 for the 256GB model. According to CNBC, Apple shares closed more than 6% lower on the day the changes went live, the worst single-day drop since April 2025.
The iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods were spared this round, though Apple left the door open to further adjustments. The Mac mini had already seen its entry-level $599 configuration quietly removed in May, with the cheapest option jumping to $799 before these latest changes.
The RAM crisis Apple could no longer absorb
The root cause is a memory shortage that has been building for over a year. According to Reuters, prices for dynamic random access memory rose as much as 98% in the first quarter of 2026 alone, with another 58% to 63% jump projected for the current quarter, per industry tracker TrendForce. That surge, which some analysts have nicknamed “RAMageddon,” stems from AI data center construction pulling memory supply away from consumer electronics. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron – the three companies that produce nearly all of the world’s DRAM – have redirected capacity toward high-bandwidth memory for AI accelerators, leaving little for laptop and desktop makers.
Apple had been shielding buyers longer than most. CEO Tim Cook had already warned in the company’s last earnings call that memory costs would “drive an increasing impact” on products from June onward. The company’s stockpile of RAM bought at older, lower prices had simply run out. In a statement, Apple said “the rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage” and added that it has “never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra has said the company expects “tight conditions to persist beyond calendar 2027,” and some analysts see the squeeze lasting well into the next decade.
Prime Day window and what buyers can still do
There is a narrow window for shoppers. Amazon is still selling some models at pre-hike prices during Prime Day 2026. The MacBook Neo (256GB) is available for $589.99, roughly $10 below Apple’s current education price. The 13-inch M5 MacBook Air (16GB, 512GB) can be found at $949, compared to the new $1,299 Apple Store price. The 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro sits at $1,549 on Amazon versus the new $1,999 official tag. And the 16-inch M5 Pro MacBook Pro in the 24GB/1TB configuration is listed at $2,494, against Apple’s revised $2,999 starting price.
Those savings are real and worth acting on if a Mac purchase was already on the cards. The memory crisis shows no sign of easing fast enough to bring prices back down, and analysts at Creative Strategies have been blunt about it. “Apple had no choice,” wrote firm founder Tim Bajarin, adding that he sees the memory squeeze lasting at least another two years. For anyone who has been sitting on the fence about upgrading, the calculus just got a lot simpler. You can check our earlier look at whether it’s a good time to buy a MacBook Pro M5 for more context on the buying decision, and our coverage of the Crucial brand closure shows just how deep the memory market disruption runs.