The most wild take I’ve seen on the Apple price increases is that Apple is going to roll back to old pricing once the memory situation is resolved. Not in a million years. Maybe prices of certain configuration upgrades but this is almost certainly the new normal.
Regarding Apple price hikes, have to imagine these are fairly imminent. No other reason to flag them now. I’d also note that Apple back to school sale is very imminent, and it could make sense to tie these together as a buffer. Either way this is happening soon. Not a fall thing.