Amidst all the hustle created yesterday at the absolutely gorgeous Steve Jobs Theatre, Apple silently raised the pricing of some iPad Pro models.
Some iPad Pro models will now cost you more; the 256GB iPad Pro 10.5 pricing has gone up to $749 to $799 while the 512GB iPad Pro 10.5 saw an increase from $949 to $999. Similarly, the 256GB iPad Pro 12.9 (2017) pricing went from $899 to $949 and the 512GB 12.9-inch model's pricing increased from $1,099 to $1,149. All these models have got a price jump of $50 on their previous pricing.
Thankfully, the 64GB variants of iPad Pro have not got any price jump. Also, some stores have not updated the new pricing of iPad Pro models yet, so if you have been planning to get yourself an iPad Pro, then you should make a move now to get better storage model at previous pricing in stores.
Apple has not given any explanation regarding the sudden price hike for some iPad Pro models, but 9to5Mac reported that this could be because of the rising cost of NAND flash storage.
The report from 9to5Mac also cites the statement of Apple CFO Luca Maestri made at Apple's Q2 earnings call earlier this year, she said:
We started to experience some level of cost pressure on the memory side particularly on on and on NAND and DRAM. To offset that and actually do better than that, we had very good cost performance on other commodities.
The impact on NAND and DRAM will continue to be there and we expect it to be there.
Interestingly, the increase in the cost of NAND can also be attributed to Apple as it sourced large quantities of it for the production of the iPhone X and iPhone 8.
We don't know whether or not Apple will drop the pricing of iPad Pro if NAND storage goes cheaper. Ideally, the company should reflect the change in the pricing of iPad Pro if NAND storage comes back to regular pricing.
