Apple Eyes $100 iPhone Price Hike as iPhone 18 Pro May Start at $1,199

Q: Are hidden performance trade-offs in the iPhone 18's storage secretly making the older iPhone 17 a smarter investment today?

Yes—if the storage rumors are accurate, they strengthen the case for buying an iPhone 17 now, especially for buyers who care about value and consistent performance. The key issue is not the iPhone 18 Pro’s base models, but the high-capacity ones. Supply-chain leaks suggest Apple may keep TLC NAND in 256GB and 512GB iPhone 18 Pro models, while shifting some 1TB and 2TB versions to cheaper QLC NAND. That matters because TLC generally delivers faster, steadier write performance and better endurance, while QLC can be slower and less consistent, particularly in heavy sustained writes and random 4K workloads. For most casual users, the difference may be hard to notice day to day, but creators and power users paying top dollar for 1TB or 2TB storage could face a real trade-off. That rumor becomes more significant because Apple is also widely expected to raise iPhone 18 Pro prices as memory and storage costs surge. Estimates range from about $100 more to substantially higher on larger-capacity models. In other words, some buyers may pay more and still get a storage subsystem that is, at least on paper, worse than the premium NAND used in the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s 2TB version. The caveat is that these storage details remain unconfirmed until teardown evidence appears. Still, based on current reporting, the iPhone 17 looks like the safer buy today: lower pricing, stronger trade-in value now, and no known storage downgrade risk.

3 articles · Updated · Boy Genius Report · Aug 28

$100 price increases are expected for Apple’s next iPhones, with the iPhone 18 Pro potentially starting at $1,199 versus $1,099 for the iPhone 17 Pro; the current iPhone 17 could also rise in price.
Higher component costs are driving the move: Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said iPhone hikes look inevitable after Apple lifted Mac and iPad prices by about 23% on average, while some estimates put iPhone 18 Pro production costs nearly 40% higher.
Apple is also watching rivals that already raised premium phone prices by $100, and it could justify higher pricing by boosting base Pro storage to 512GB.
Current iPhone 17 pricing may therefore be the best near-term deal, helped by higher trade-in values and Apple’s new Upgrade leasing plan starting at $17.99 a month for the iPhone 17e.
Rumors of a split iPhone 18 rollout—with Pro models and a foldable first, then the rest by early 2027—suggest buyers waiting for the next generation may face both higher prices and weaker trade-in terms.