Word.ws English Dictionary

Apple tax

Apple tax noun: the price paid by people purchasing Apple products, said to be higher than that of comparable alternatives.

Noun

Apple tax (plural Apple taxes)

  1. (derogatory, informal) The price paid by people purchasing Apple products, said to be higher than that of comparable alternatives.
    • Microsoft has been warning about the so-called "Apple tax" that people pay for buying Macs. Their newest claim: A family of four will pay $3,367 over five years if they buy Macs instead of PCs, not just for the initial machines, but in ongoing costs hardware and software costs.2009 April 9, Preston Gralla, “How much does the "Apple Tax" really cost?”, in Computerworld
    • You'll want to buy what you need and no more, as there is a definite Apple-tax premium here.2018 October 30, John Burek, “Hands On With the 2018 Apple MacBook Air”, in PCMag
  2. (derogatory, informal) The commission taken by Apple on purchases on its online services, such as the App Store and iTunes.
    • (title)2015 July 8, Mark Sullivan, “Spotify snubs Apple, invites subscribers to avoid 30% 'Apple Tax'”, in VentureBeat
    • Epic's CEO Tim Sweeney has been incredibly outspoken about App Store taxes. He’s taken Fortnite off the Google Play Store and would dearly love to find a way to not have to give Apple a cut on iOS devices. Does he have a personal stake in that fight? Obviously. But he's also one of a growing chorus...2020 April 3, Dieter Bohn, “Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax, and why other developers won’t”, in The Verge

Forms of Apple tax

pluralApple taxes

Origin of Apple tax

Referring to American technology company Apple Inc., specifically the high price of its high-end computers (sense 1) and its mobile ecosystem (sense 2).

Questions about Apple tax

What does Apple tax mean?
Apple tax means the price paid by people purchasing Apple products, said to be higher than that of comparable alternatives.
What part of speech is Apple tax?
Apple tax is a noun.
What is the plural of Apple tax?
The plural of Apple tax is Apple taxes.

Words near Apple tax in the dictionary

  1. apple snails
  2. apple snow
  3. apple strudel
  4. apple strudels
  5. apple summer disease
  6. Apple tax
  7. Apple taxes
  8. apple tree
  9. Apple Tree Flat
  10. apple trees
  11. apple turnover

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Apple tax (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-Apple tax.ogg.

Cite this entry: “Apple tax.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/apple_tax. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.