Is this true? I was under the impression that Apple signs long term deals with companies and the reason they didn't have a price hike for so long is because they were still getting parts are the former price
Apple doesn’t get a pass just because their contracts are many of orders of magnitude bigger.
1/ Force apple to eat a price hike. Failing that, they can:
2/ Terminate their relationship with apple
3/ Go bankrupt trying to sell $2 for $1 (which leads us back to point 1)
iPhone 6 launched without the sapphire screen and GTAT went bust.
Apple has a bit of a storied history of being the reason suppliers go bankrupt. Their contracts are usually one sided (who is going to tell Apple no and turn down that business?), and Apple does not like to be pushed around. They use multiple sourcing and pit their suppliers against one another and aren't above bullying.