Following the unveiling of the new iPhone 18 Pro and the first foldable iPhone Duo, Apple has raised prices on four models from previous generations in its online store. Each of them went up by $100.

The new starting prices are now as follows:

  • iPhone 16 — $799 instead of $699;

  • iPhone 17e — $699 instead of $599;

  • iPhone 17 — $899 instead of $799;

  • iPhone Air — $1,099 instead of $999.

iPhone 17 Pro disappears from the lineup

At the same time as the launch of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, Apple discontinued production and sales of the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.

As a result, the more expensive models from the previous generation made way for the new flagships, while the base iPhone 16 and 17, as well as the iPhone 17e and iPhone Air, remained on sale, but at a higher price.

Why Apple raised prices

The possibility of an iPhone price increase had been discussed even before the presentation. One of the reasons was the sharply rising prices of memory and storage components, demand for which has increased amid the large-scale buildout of infrastructure for artificial intelligence.

Apple CEO Tim Cook warned back in June that the company could no longer fully offset the rising cost of these components. According to him, the memory shortage was unprecedented in scale.

Growing demand from companies developing AI and neo-cloud infrastructure is already creating supply constraints in the semiconductor market. At the same time, investment in building new data centers is measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars, which has sparked separate debate over how sustainable this demand will prove to be.

The price increase for existing iPhone models has become one of the first noticeable consequences of these changes for buyers.