$1,299 iPhone 18 Pro Max?! Analyst now predicts $200 price hike for Apple's next flagship phone

Surprisingly, when Apple announced across the board price hikes for its entire product lineup, the iPhone was left untouched. That may not last long, though.

While Apple didn't announce iPhone price increases, it's likely those are coming. The iPhone is Apple's biggest revenue driver making up over 60% of the company's sales since 2008 accordign to this Business of Apps report. And now finally, Apple is proving that it's not immune to RAMaggedon.

Analysts at IDC predict that Apple will announce price increases at a later date. Nabila Popal of IDC told Tom's Guide that the company had been forecasting $100 increases for the Pro models and $50 for the base ones.

However, it appears the price hikes to the iPad and Mac laptops were much larger than expected.

"My personal instinct says the hike to iPhones may be even higher than what we assumed – perhaps even $200 to the Pro Max models," Popal said. "I think the days of $50 price increases are over."

If that comes to fruition, here's how it would look:

Popal believes today's announcement is a way for Apple to "cushion" the idea of price increases for the iPhone.

Especially since this year's phone might drive iPhone owners to upgrade, since the recently announced AI-powered Siri upgrade will only be available on iPhone 17 Pro models and later. That leaves out the popular iPhone 16 models and even the iPhone 15 Pro models, the oldest ones that currently support Apple Intelligence.

Price hikes are becoming the norm

As AI drains the world of memory and storage, it's become increasingly common for companies to announce price hikes to combat the ongoing shortage. At around the same time Apple announced its price increases, Microsoft also revealed that Xbox price hikes are coming, again.

Both Apple and Microsoft blamed "components crisis" for the rising dollar signs.

"We believe the situation is not bound to be better, at least for the next two years," Counterpoint's VP of Research Neil Shah, told Tom's Guide. Shah added that companies will likely start pushing premium products as consumers reject weaker "budget" models and their new higher costs.

Apple, like its Windows rival, is not blameless here. Despite its seeming ineptitude at getting AI to work, the company has invested in the ubiquitous technology in the last couple of years.

Since 2024 its had partnerships with OpenAI and this year with Google to integrate the company's AI models into Apple Intelligence. Meanwhile, they hired and fired various AI builders to create Apple Intelligence.

WWDC 2026 showed that Apple may have finally figured it out.

Unfortunately, investing in AI means you're putting money towards the greedy dragons that are AI-focused datacenters, which hoard memory chips like Smaug. Only we don't seem to have a Bard to kill the beast.

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