Apple announces significant price increases

[MUSIC] Welcome to 95 Mac Daily for Friday, June 26, 2026. I'm your host, Chance Miller. We are sponsored this week by Robo Rock. Leading off today, Apple has raised prices across the board for many of its products. MacBook Neo now starts at $6.99, a $100 increase while MacBook Air now starts at $12.99 an increase of $200. This comes after Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed the company would increase prices in an interview last week. Cook explained that price increases had simply become unavoidable amid skyrocketing component costs affecting things like memory and storage. While Apple tried to weather the storm itself, that situation was ultimately unsustainable, according to Cook. In a new statement following these price increases, Apple said, "We have never seen a component price increase this much this quickly. We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac. We know this is not welcome news and we are working tirelessly to find solutions." The price increases affect a ton of different Apple products, again including the MacBook Neo and the MacBook Air. Additionally, the MacBook Pro now starts at $19.99 up from $16.99. The iMac now starts at $14.99 up from $12.99. The M4 Max Mac Studio now starts at $24.99 up from $19.99 and the M3 Ultra Mac Studio now starts at $5,300 up from $4,000. For the iPad, the base model iPad now starts at $4.49, $100 increase. The iPad Air now starts at $7.49, $150 increase. The iPad Pro is now $200 more expensive starting at $11.99 and the iPad Mini is up $100 to $5.99. Finally, there are four other Apple products that have gotten more expensive. The Apple TV 4K now starts at $200 up from $129. The HomePod now starts at $349 up from $2.99. The HomePod Mini is $30 more expensive now at $129.00 and the Vision Pro now starts at $36.99 up from $34.99. There are, however, other Apple products that have not seen increases. Most notably, the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods are all completely unaffected by these price increases. Apple's accessory lineup, including pricey accessories like the Magic Keyboard for iPad, also seems to have been spared from these increases. So to recap, if you head to the Apple Store with plans by a Mac, iPad, Apple TV, HomePod, or Vision Pro, you will pay more today than you would have earlier this week, and Apple says that's because of the rising component costs affecting things like RAM and storage. We are sponsored this week by RoboRock. If you're looking to upgrade your cleaning routine for Prime Day, now is a great time. RoboRock is offering limited time deals across its lineup of robot vacuums and wet drive vacuums with savings of up to $1500. That includes RoboRock's popular Soros 10R at its lowest price yet, as well as its latest Q-Revo Edge 2 models. There are also budget-friendly options starting at just $250. To learn more and take advantage of these Prime Day deals from RoboRock, hit the link in the show notes. My thanks to RoboRock for sponsoring 9-5 Mac daily. Next up a day with the increased popularity of smart rings from companies like Aura, there's plenty of speculation about whether Apple might build its own competitor. A new report from Leeker Kassutami says that an Apple ring is actually now in development. While Apple Watch is a very successful product line for Apple, health trackers continue flooding the scene in other form factors, like the smart rings from Aura and smart bands from companies like Woop and Fitbit. This rumor from Kassutami, who has leaked accurate Apple information in the past, says that Apple has kickstarted development of a new wearable ring. The account says that the project under development is expected to compete with products like the Aura ring and the Samsung Galaxy ring. It's unclear how far along the effort might be and no other details were shared. What we do know is that Eddie Q recently took over leadership for Apple's health division and has reportedly pushed the company to be more aggressive in its health offerings. A smart ring could be part of that. Some people want the fitness and health tracking features of the Apple Watch, but without wearing a watch on their wrist. That's why these third-party options from companies like Aura are getting increasingly popular. But as always, it's important to remember that just because a smart ring might be in development inside Apple doesn't mean the product will actually materialize. Apple regularly investigates new product categories and only a very small subset of those investigations lead to products that are actually released to customers. Running out today, Apple's digital event planning app invites has released a big update this week with three new features. As a refresher, Apple invites first arrived as a dedicated invitation app in February of last year, and it has regularly rolled out new features since then. Starting this week, Apple invites now has a co-hosting feature which lets you easily plan and manage your party with other people. Apple has also added new event backgrounds to help set the mood for your next event created in Apple invites. And finally, you can now choose to make invited guests visible to all attendees, so someone can see all of the other people going to an event before they decide to attend themselves. Apple invites is available on the app store as a free download, but you will need an iCloud Plus subscription to actually create a digital invitation. There ups up another episode and another week of 95 Mac Daily. As always, if you like the show, it's very helpful to us if you head to Apple Podcasts and leave a rating and a review. You can find an ad free version at 9-5-Mac.com/join for $5 a month or $50 a year. You can find all of the latest Apple news on 9-5-Mac.com, follow along with me on threads at Chance H. Miller and we'll be back on Monday for a new week of Apple News.