The Apple tax appears to be alive and well. Yesterday, prospective owners of the company’s latest, entry-level 13″ MacBook Pro model discovered that Apple is now charging double for memory upgrades. Previously, customers could upgrade from the standard amount of 8 GB memory (2133 MHz LPDDR3) to 16 GB for $100. That luxury now costs $200.
As MacRumors points out, this is an unusual move because Apple launched this particular model less than a month ago. Critics believe that the company is merely attempting to maximize its profits, as supply chain volatility incited by coronavirus should have leveled out by now.
“Supply chains around the world have been disrupted in recent months due to the current health situation, but China, where most of Apple’s manufacturing partners operate, has been reopening ahead of many other countries around the world as it was the first to shut down,” explained MacRumors. “So with pricing having been set on the 13-inch MacBook Pro just a month ago, the supply situation should generally have improved since then rather than worsened.”
Luckily, the price increase for memory upgrades hasn’t been applied to any of the other MacBook models. Customers can still, for instance, jump from 16 GB to 32 GB of RAM for $400 on the higher-ended 13″ Pro SKU.