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Every new Apple product this year costs more than last year’s model. And almost every one of them came with a catch. Some feature people have been asking for is missing.
So I went through the iPad mini, HomePod mini, Apple TV, HomeView, Mac mini and iMac one at a time. Here’s what each one costs now, what it still leaves out, why I think Apple keeps doing this, and what I’d change if I were them.
I get that memory and chips cost more, and Apple can’t eat every cent of that. But if the price goes up, they need to give us more for it. My fix: 256GB as the base on iPads, 512GB as the base on computers, and if that means $50 more, raise it $50.
Check price: M6 Mac miniThe price hikes at a glance
| Product | Was | Now | Still missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPad mini | $500 (2024), then $600 in June | $700 (OLED, A20 Pro) | 120Hz, more base storage |
| HomePod mini | $100 (2020), then $130 in June | $150 (HomePod mini 2) | Siri AI at launch |
| Apple TV 4K | $130 in January, then $200 in June | $300, one model | Anything past 4K at 60 frames a second |
| HomeView | New | $300 tabletop or wall mount | The woofer and mounting hardware on the wall version |
| Mac mini | $600 at the M4 launch | $900 (M6) | 512GB base storage |
| iMac | $1,300 at the M4 launch | $1,500 (M6) | 512GB base, Ethernet and Touch ID on the base model |
Shopping for a Mac right now? Tell me how you’d use it and I’ll give you a personalized pick.
iPad mini
In 2024 the iPad mini started at $500, and Apple doubled the storage to 128GB at that price. That was a good value. Then in June it went to $600 for the same iPad, with no extra storage.
Now the new OLED iPad mini is $700. I appreciate that they added OLED and gave it the A20 Pro chip. But the base storage is still 128GB, and it’s still within $100 of the base iPad Air.
It’s also 60Hz. No 120Hz. That’s the one feature people kept asking for on the iPad mini, and it’s not there. Even the base iPhone 17 has 120Hz now.
And the cheaper iPad minis get a worse chip. The 128GB and 256GB models get a slimmed-down A20 Pro with 5 CPU cores instead of 6, and they don’t get the new dual Neural Engine. If you want the full chip, you have to buy the 512GB model, and that’s $1,000. The old iPad mini has 6 CPU cores on every model.
HomePod mini 2
The original HomePod mini came out in 2020 at $100. In June, Apple raised it to $130 with the same speaker and nothing new. Now the HomePod mini 2 is $150, so $50 more than the original price.
It does have the S10 chip, Wi-Fi 6E and the sound glow on top. And if you get 4 of them, you can do full surround sound with an Apple TV.
But the headline feature is Siri AI, and it’s not there at launch. It’s coming in a software update later. If you’ve got an original HomePod mini, you can’t stereo pair it with the new one either. They have to match. So you’re paying extra and the big new feature isn’t even here yet.
Apple TV 4K
This was the wildest announcement of the year. At the start of the year, the Apple TV 4K was $130. In June it went to $200 for the same box. No new chip, no extra storage.
The new one is $300, and there’s only one model. It has the A19 chip, 128GB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi 7, and the new remote with Find My. It’s also got microphones built in, so you can use Siri hands-free.
But it’s still 4K at 60 frames a second. If all you do is stream, like I do, the faster chip doesn’t change much. That’s $170 more than the cheapest Apple TV cost last January, and you’re mostly paying for a nicer interface than your smart TV and power most people won’t use. I went deeper on this in my Apple TV 4K (2026) post.
HomeView
HomeView is Apple’s new smart home display. It’s kind of like an iPad and a HomePod put together, and I think the standard tabletop version at $300 is a fair price. It might be the best value Apple put out this year.
The wall-mounted version is where it gets weird. It also costs $300, you don’t get the woofer, and you have to buy the mounting hardware separately. So the wall version gives you less, and then Apple asks you to spend more to install it. I think that’s crazy.
I’m excited to try the standard one. I’m just still not sure it does anything my iPad can’t.
Mac mini, iMac and the Studio Display
Mac mini
The M6 Mac mini has been amazing. The performance is great. But Apple raised the price all the way to $900. It has 16GB of RAM, which is fine, but they left it at 256GB of storage, and that’s not enough for a desktop computer in 2026. The M4 Mac mini launched at $600 with the same 256GB option.
I don’t think the Mac mini needs a 256GB option at all. If they needed to raise the price a little, fine, but give us more. Make 512GB the standard at that price and drop the 256GB model. Cutting that option might even save them a little money. If you’re wondering whether the base one is enough for you, I broke that down in Is the M6 Mac mini enough?
iMac
The new M6 iMac starts at $1,500 and it’s stuck at 256GB too. The M4 iMac launched at $1,300, and the old $1,500 iMac used to have 4 Thunderbolt ports.
Now $1,500 is the base model. You don’t get Ethernet and you don’t get Touch ID on the keyboard. You have to go up to the $1,700 model for those, and that one still has 256GB. So they raised the price, gave us a couple of new features, kept the same display, and didn’t give us much more to justify the extra money.
Studio Display
Apple did finally launch the new Studio Display everyone was waiting for, but it uses the same old panel stuck at 60Hz. If you want 120Hz, you have to go all the way up to the Studio Display XDR at $3,300 instead of the standard one at $1,600. And I’m not even getting into subscription prices going up, because that’s happening too.
Why Apple keeps doing this
I think there are 3 possible answers.
Engineering. Some things are hard to build, and Apple won’t ship a feature until it works.
Cheapness. If you leave a part out or dumb a feature down a little, Apple saves money on every single unit, and that means better profit margins.
Holding it back on purpose. If a feature is missing, now you’ve got a reason to buy the next model. Or you move up from an Air to a Pro because that’s the only way to get 256GB or ProMotion on the base model.
Honestly, I’m not sure which one it is. My problem isn’t the price increases. I understand memory and chips cost more, and Apple can’t eat every cent of that. But if the price goes up, they need to put value back for us, and not in the small increments they’re doing now with slight upgrades to each model.
When people keep asking for a specific feature, that proves there’s a want and a need for it. The best companies serve their customers and give them what they want, and there are plenty of people happy to pay for those features.
What I’d change
First, I’d stop starting the lowest model with less storage. 256GB needs to be the base on iPads, and 512GB needs to be the base on computers. If the price has to go up a little to cover it, then sure, raise it $50. That’s putting value back in for the customer.
The bottom line
Price hikes I can live with. Paying more for the same base storage and missing features is the part that bugs me. I’ve got all of these products coming in, and I’m going to test them myself so I can tell you which ones are worth upgrading to and which ones you should skip and keep last year’s model.
Still deciding on a Mac? Tell me how you’d use it and I’ll give you a personalized pick. And let me know which price hike bugs you the most.
