At its Surprise and Shine event, Apple introduced the new foldable iPhone Duo and the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, but the event also brought a quieter development: price increases across most of its iPhone lineup. The iPhone 16, iPhone 17, iPhone 17e, and iPhone Air all saw their prices rise by $100 on Apple's site, even though none of these models received any hardware changes to justify the increase.
The new iPhone 18 Pro now starts at $1,199 and the iPhone 18 Pro Max at $1,299, each $100 more than the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, which have now been discontinued. Those older Pro models had launched at $1,099 and $1,199 respectively, and while Apple no longer sells them directly, they remain available through carriers at their original prices.
Among the other affected phones, the iPhone 16 now starts at $799, the iPhone 17e at $699, the iPhone 17 at $899, and the iPhone Air at $1,099. One notable oddity: the iPhone 16 at $799 costs $100 more than the iPhone 17e, despite having half the storage (128GB vs. 256GB) and an older processor, though the iPhone 16 does offer a better camera setup and faster charging.
The price hikes come amid an industry-wide DRAM shortage, driven largely by AI data center demand consuming memory supply. Apple CEO Tim Cook has compared the situation to a "hundred-year flood" and said the company can no longer absorb rising memory and storage costs as it has in the past. The pressure mirrors what's already occurred in the PC industry, where DRAM and SSD price increases have affected system builders and OEMs for months.
Apple is touting significant battery life improvements on its new flagship phones, claiming the iPhone 18 Pro Max will last up to 45 hours during video playback, six hours more than the iPhone 17 Pro Max. It remains to be seen whether Apple will maintain current pricing or raise prices further when it releases the iPhone 18 and iPhone Air 2, expected early next year.