Wall Street Journal:

“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” [Apple CEO Tim Cook] said. “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”

Cook declined to offer details on the timing or scale of the planned price increases, nor which products would be affected. Apple’s next major product launch is likely to be in September when it releases the iPhone 18 lineup, expected to include a new foldable iPhone.

Few points here:

1. Apple has already raised some prices, sort of: It has eliminated some of the lower-spec'd versions of its Macs, nudging buyers to higher margined configurations.

2. A price increase on the iPhone is long overdue, and the 20th anniversary year for the device seems a good opportunity to do that. The last time the iPhone saw a price increase was with 2017's iPhone X — the 10th anniversary model.

3. The WSJ did the math on a $1,299 iPhone. Maybe Apple steered them here, maybe it did not. Either way, the reporting primes Wall Street for such a move. And Cook saying it out loud now saves his successor, John Ternus, from beginning his tenure with some bad news.

4. My own reporting suggests consumers might be willing to go much higher, especially if Apple offers longer-term installment plans that keep monthly payments at the same level they are now. Longer plans are more feasible these days, when the largest cohort of upgraders each year have had their current handset for at least three years, largely thanks to improved battery tech.

5. Apple could disguise a price increase for the regular iPhone by hiding it within the anticipated folding iPhone, expected to be priced in the realm of $2,000. For the Apple superfan prepared to pay that, why not make it $2,299 and help a more cost-conscious consumer out?