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Image Credits:Shahid Jamil / Getty Images4:28 PM PDT · July 30, 2026
As the generative AI roar drives steep request for hardware components, Apple and different hardware makers are facing what outgoing CEO Tim Cook calls “a hundred-year flood [on] representation pricing,” which is severely impacting the outgo of producing iPhones, MacBooks, and different devices.
Apple described its caller earnings report arsenic its “strongest June 4th ever,” with iPhone and Mac income performing amended than expected, increasing 22% and 29% respectively twelvemonth implicit year. Yet the institution is bracing for representation shortages, known arsenic RAMageddon, to get adjacent worse. Apple’s biggest situation is securing the precocious representation nodes utilized successful its Apple silicon chips, which powerfulness the A-Series and M-Series processors utilized successful iPhones and Macs.
“We proceed to expect precocious levels of demand. However, with little flexibility successful proviso chain, we expect the interaction from the proviso constraints to summation importantly sequentially,” Cook said connected Apple’s quarterly net call. “We’re seeing immoderate precise important constraints presently with constricted flexibility successful the proviso concatenation to remedy it.”
Apple is evidently disquieted capable astir proviso shortages that it reported $11.1 billion successful inventory, astir treble the $5.7 cardinal it reported past September. This marks a interruption from Cook’s long-held proviso concatenation approach, which has emphasized minimizing however overmuch inventory Apple has connected hand.
These constraints led Apple to “reluctantly” raise the price of Macs and iPads past month, Cook added. Other companies that person raised hardware prices see Meta, Samsung, Microsoft, and Sony.
“We’re going to beryllium scrambling connected the proviso side, essentially,” Cook said.
For the upcoming quarter, Apple is predicting gross maturation betwixt 9% and 11% twelvemonth implicit year. But successful the past respective quarters, Apple has maintained astir 16% year-over-year growth. Of course, that worries investors — Apple banal dropped 6% successful after-hours trading.
When Senior VP of Hardware Engineering John Ternus steps into the CEO relation successful September, the institution could beryllium facing a unsmooth patch, but astatine slightest Apple isn’t unsocial successful its proviso struggles.
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Amanda Silberling is simply a elder writer astatine TechCrunch covering the intersection of exertion and culture. She has besides written for publications similar Polygon, MTV, the Kenyon Review, NPR, and Business Insider. She is the co-host of Wow If True, a podcast astir net culture, with subject fabrication writer Isabel J. Kim. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she worked arsenic a grassroots organizer, depository educator, and movie festival coordinator. She holds a B.A. successful English from the University of Pennsylvania and served arsenic a Princeton successful Asia Fellow successful Laos.
You tin interaction oregon verify outreach from Amanda by emailing amanda@techcrunch.com or via encrypted connection astatine @amanda.100 connected Signal.
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