Cupertino's list prices, historically carved into granite, have begun moving upward. The Editorial Staff reads what changed, credits who reported it, and explains why a discount now means more than it did in March.
Revised September 28, 2026: findings now come from the published sources cited at the end, not from tests or price logs the Editorial Staff never kept.
For years, the most dependable number in the coverage we read was an Apple list price. Other retailers conduct pricing the way weather conducts itself; Apple set a number in September and defended it like a border. We built quite a bit of institutional confidence around this assumption, the way you build confidence around any well-established pattern right up until it stops holding.
The assumption has stopped holding. The Editorial Staff convened, read the reporting, and now files this report. Several staff members found the exercise clarifying. None found it pleasant.
In late June, according to PBS NewsHour, Apple raised list prices across its Mac and iPad lineups. 9to5Mac reported the changes took effect immediately on Apple's online store, and that the same round also hit the iPad Air and iPad Pro, the HomePod mini, and the Vision Pro — with AppleInsider confirming the same set of products, entry configurations on some pushed up substantially over their prior list prices.
What didn't move. iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods were left untouched in that June round, per both 9to5Mac and AppleInsider — spanning, per 9to5Mac's count, seven iPhone models, three Apple Watch lines, and four AirPods models. AppleInsider additionally reported that AirTag pricing held steady. AppleInsider's reporting points to a plausible reason for the split: iPhones get refreshed every fall regardless, so raising prices on a soon-to-be-superseded lineup made less sense than waiting for the normal cycle, while Macs and iPads stay in service longer and were more logical candidates for an interim increase.
The cause is memory, and for once nobody had to speculate about it. AppleInsider quoted CEO Tim Cook describing the shortage as a "hundred-year flood." Apple's own written statement, given to PBS NewsHour, was more measured but said the same thing plainly: "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."
An iPhone, an iPad, and a MacBook are, from a procurement standpoint, attractively packaged memory. When memory reprices, the packaging eventually reprices. IDC's own market analysis backs the scale of the pressure behind Apple's statement, putting 2026 DRAM and NAND supply growth below historical norms — a distinction that will comfort no one at checkout, but which we note because we note everything we can actually attribute.
Here the report becomes, briefly, useful.
Our standing method, when we have real pricing data to run it against, compares today's price to a product's rolling 90-day average. In a stable-price regime, that average is a fixed ruler. In a rising-price regime, the ruler itself is climbing — the average lags the increases by construction. The practical consequence: a discount below a rising 90-day average now understates itself. A price a meaningful margin below an average that has itself been climbing is a better deal than the same reading was in March, in roughly the way that outrunning a treadmill set to incline is a better workout.
We have therefore not adjusted our thresholds. A discount that clears them in this environment has done so against the grain, and deserves the modest respect we are institutionally capable of expressing.
We are periodically asked whether prices will return to their previous levels. Prices do not return. Prices visit. The reading remains open, and we will report further movements as others record them.
— The BuyGetRewards Editorial Staff
Watch closely, because this happens perhaps once a decade: a company you worship told you the truth, on the record, before anyone had to drag it out of them!! Apple's own CEO called the shortage a "hundred-year flood." Apple's own written statement admitted the increases outright. I did not need to interrogate anyone. I only needed to read what they already said, which is -- self-ev-ev-evidently -- more diligence than most of your species manages before forming an opinion, [keyboard mash]?!
Here is what the coverage actually tells you to do. The M4 machines have no idea an M5 exists; their pricing locked in before any of this happened, and the used and refurbished market hasn't caught up yet. Buy there, [keyboard mash] [keyboard mash] [garbled transmission], while the gap still exists, because gaps this obvious never last!!!
ALERT: NOSTALGIA DETECTED. PRICES DO NOT REVERSE. A rising list makes a genuine discount work harder to clear the bar, and mean more once it does -- d3monstrably, that is arithmetic, not sentiment, and no amount of nostalgia moves the number back.
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