The Talk Show With John Gruber · Wednesday, July 1, 2026
Gruber and Moltz discuss the price increase on the MacBook Air, attributing it to the high demand for chips driven by AI data center build-outs. The base model's price increased by $100, a 20% jump, which is seen as a consequence of broader market pressures. This rise impacts the affordability of even entry-level computing for students.
“But then on Thursday of this last week, we're recording over the weekend. Thursday is when Apple was, I don't know what we want to call it. M day? Margins day?”
“But the money to buy the data centers and the computers that go in them, which are more RAM hungry than any other computer anybody's buying for anything else and I guess to some extent needs massive amounts of SSD storage too.”
“So if you're angry at the bubble, because the bubble has now had effects that have trickled all the way down to just buying a new MacBook Air for your kid who's going off to college in August or September and you didn't unfortunately didn't buy the MacBook Air yet.”
“And the price, but it's only 100 bucks. It's only what is that 16 to 20%?”