Apple hikes prices on higher capacity iPad Pros by $50 – CNET

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The 10.5-inch iPad Pro (left) and the 12.9-inch model are a bit more expensive this week.

Sarah Tew/CNET

The 256GB and 512GB versions of the iPad Pro cost $50 more now than they did before Apple‘s big Tuesday iPhone event.

As is standard operating procedure on big Apple announcement days, Apple’s online store went offline a few hours before the event so it could be fully updated with the new cavalcade of products immediately following their unveiling. But alongside the new iPhones, Apple Watches and 4K Apple TV boxes, 9to5mac noticed that the higher capacity models of Apple’s 2017 iPad Pros were $50 more expensive — despite the fact that nothing about them had otherwise changed.

The culprit, apparently, is rising prices for tablet’s components — possibly due to competing demand on NAND storage for Apple’s own new iPhones. The issue of rising component prices had previously been raised in Apple’s quarterly earnings call last month.

The hikes are not universal, however: Prices on the baseline 64GB iPad Pros remain unchanged, as does the price of the entry-level iPad at both 32GB and 128GB capacities.

Earlier this week, Apple announced the $999 iPhone X, its most expensive iPhone to date. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are also more expensive than their predecessor models, albeit with double the storage on entry-level models (64GB vs. 32GB). However, the company also cut the prices of older iPhones, with the 32GB iPhone SE now starting at just $349.

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