If you were hoping Apple’s recent price increases were a one-off, there’s another reason to watch what happens in 2027. Two of the most important components inside your iPhone, iPad, and Mac are about to cost Apple a lot more.
A report from DigiTimes, citing Chinese publication Jiemian News, claims Apple has reached an agreement with Samsung for its memory supply beginning in early 2027. Under the reported terms, Apple would pay close to $2 per gigabit for DRAM and $0.33 per gigabit for NAND flash. Put more simply, the memory that gives your devices their RAM and storage could cost Apple around 30% to 40% more than it did in the third quarter of this year.
A jump in component costs doesn’t automatically mean your next iPhone will cost 40% more. Memory is only one part of the total cost of building a device, and Apple could choose to absorb some of the increase. The concern is that Apple has already shown that it is willing to pass at least some of the effects of the memory shortage on to customers.
Prices went up across Macs and iPads earlier this year, with increases also reaching the Apple TV, HomePod lineup, and Vision Pro. Then came the iPhone 18 series, where the iPhone 18 Pro‘s US starting price climbed by $100 compared with the previous generation. Some older iPhones also became more expensive. Whether another round follows in 2027 is still unknown. Apple could have already accounted for future memory costs when setting its latest prices.
The bigger problem is where all this demand is coming from. The rapid expansion of AI infrastructure has companies building huge data centers that require enormous amounts of memory. That has put pressure on the supply available for everything else, including phones and computers.
Apple has already acknowledged how unusual the situation has become. Former CEO Tim Cook previously compared the disruption in the memory market to a “100-year flood” while discussing the company’s price increases. The reported Samsung deal now suggests this isn’t a short-term problem. Apple may be securing the memory it needs for next year’s products, but securing it cheaply appears to be another matter entirely.
Not long ago, Apple treated independent repair like an act of outright hostility. The Cupertino giant locked down parts with serial-number pairing, while repair tools remained firmly out of reach of anyone outside its authorized repair network. More importantly, the company waged a legal and lobbying battle against right-to-repair legislation.
I've covered enough of these fights over the years to know what a shift looks like. That's why what happened in October 2026 genuinely caught me off guard. The day the iPhone Duo went on sale, what may be the most mechanically complex iPhone to date, Apple pulled off a surprising about-face. It published teardown-style repair manuals for a handful of major components.
Apple's first foldable phone is now on shelves, in short supply, but with an unreal amount of buzz around it. After all, it's the first foldable iPhone, and there's plenty that this phone gets right. But there's also a lot that is either broken or underwhelming. What's peculiar is the dialogue around this phone, and how it has completely overshadowed every other attempt at making a phone with a similar form factor.
I've spent some time with the iPhone Duo, and I've used the Galaxy Z Fold 8 for almost three months now. In my opinion, Samsung deserves more credit. When the Galaxy Z Fold 8 arrived earlier this year, it was celebrated in some circles and ridiculed in others for supposedly copying what Apple would eventually deliver with the iPhone Duo. The dialogue was pretty odd, for multiple reasons. Samsung has been making foldable phones for years, so claiming that it copied a product Apple hadn't even launched was simply absurd.
For years, Samsung’s Galaxy A phones have been some of the easiest recommendations for anyone who wants to go the Android route without paying flagship prices. But that part of the lineup could soon become harder to find at a good price.
According to South Korea’s Electronic Times, Samsung is cutting Galaxy A production by about 20% in the fourth quarter compared to its original plans. Component orders have reportedly dropped by a similar amount, which could mean roughly 10 million fewer phones over the year. Samsung is also said to be considering another production cut of more than 10% next year.