The real reason your phone is getting more expensive

When Apple debuts the next generation of iPhones this week, they’re likely to come with an unwanted change: a higher price tag. A price hike from the supply-chain powerhouse would be the clearest sign yet that soaring memory costs have become unavoidable — with no end to the memory crunch in sight. Call it “chipflation” or “RAMageddon.” The shortage is reversing a decades-long decline in memory costs that helped make consumer electronics more powerful without making them dramatically more expensive. The terms “memory prices” and “memory shortage” appeared in 473 company transcripts last quarter, according to data provided by AlphaSense. The entire industry is seemingly working on the problem. And yet, we’re years away from seeing it fixed. The common wisdom is that AI is at fault: The technology isn’t just contributing to higher energy prices and layoffs; it’s also helping drive up the cost of everything from smartphones to game consoles. But the shortage was brewing well before ChatGPT took off — and was then amplified by AI’s unending hunger for RAM. The current market is the product of a complicated and very profitable reshuffling of the memory industry within a system that was already failing to keep up.…