“We think you’re going to like what you’re going to see,” says John Ternus, who took over as chief executive of Apple (AAPL) last week and ran his first keynote Wednesday. The headliner is easy to like. The iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable, opens into something close to a tablet, runs two apps side by side and all but hides its crease, at the cost of noticeable heft. Then came the numbers: the Duo starts at $1,999, and the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max each rose $100, to $1,199 and $1,299.
The part nobody sees
The hinge isn’t what’s driving the price. Memory is. The chips that run apps and store photos cost roughly five times what they did last fall, and Apple is raising prices across the lineup to protect its margins. The Pro increase was smaller than some analysts feared, a sign Apple is eating part of the cost, and with no new base iPhone this year, upgraders get steered toward pricier models. Apple slipped 88 cents to $315.34 Wednesday. Memory makers rallied: Micron (MU) rose $27.51 to $1,027.77, SK Hynix hit a new high and Sandisk (SNDK) climbed too. The paper didn’t link those moves to Apple, but the timing is hard to miss.
Signals point to the AI build-out reaching the checkout counter: AI servers use memory in bulk, and phones now compete with them for the same supply. That makes this a stubborn sort of inflation — driven by supply, not by shoppers — and it’s the kind interest rates can’t fix. A rate hike can cool spending; it can’t conjure one extra chip. Markets still price roughly a 60% chance of an increase at the Fed’s Sept. 15–16 meeting, with Friday’s inflation report up next.
Monthly doesn’t mean smaller
For a household, this is a budgeting item, not a market call. A phone upgrade used to be a rounding error; at these prices it deserves its own line in the plan. The Journal notes buyers may spread the cost over installment plans, and those do smooth out cash flow. They don’t shrink anything. A $1,999 phone in monthly slices is still a $1,999 phone — just one that’s easier to forget you’re paying for.
So decide what the next upgrade is worth before the preorder page decides for you. Pro preorders open Sept. 12 and the Duo’s on Oct. 16. If the current phone still works, the cheapest upgrade may be the one you’ve penciled in for next year, when Apple’s base model is expected back. Either way, put the number in the budget before it lands on the card.