Three months ago, outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook admitted that the company had been caught off guard by the sharp increase in demand for the Mac Mini. Cook said it may take “several months” to catch up with demand, fueled by a boom in people using the compact computer for local AI workloads.
Now, while the situation has improved slightly, things are far from normal. At its worst, the base configuration of the Mac Mini was completely sold out on Apple’s storefront. This is true at third-party retailers like Amazon or Best Buy. Apple has them back in stock for a while now on Apple.com, but slow shipping times still show how dire the situation is.
Longer Waits
When buying directly from Apple, the cheapest Mac Mini with only 16 GB of RAM ships in three to four weeks. A MacBook Air from Apple with the same 16 GB of RAM configuration has a delivery window of two to three weeks—same as the MacBook Neo with 8 GB of RAM.
RAM is the primary contributing factor to the delays, as the waits get longer as capacity increases. Mac Mini configurations with 36 GB of RAM have wait times of around a month, while 48 GB of memory will take three months or longer to ship to customers. Meanwhile, a Mac Studio with 48 GB of memory takes an estimated “13 to 14 weeks” to arrive. That’s an incredibly long time to wait. These higher-end memory configurations aren’t even on offer at Amazon or Best Buy.
The wait times may put Apple in conflict with its next update of the Mac Mini and Mac Studio. Apple has not updated the Mac Mini since October 2024, but rumors have been pointing to an M5 chip update this fall. That means if you order an M4 Mac Mini right now, you could receive it after the newer model has been announced. That’s how far behind Apple has become in meeting demand.
The fastest way to get a Mac Mini right now is through Amazon. While configuration options are limited, you can buy an M4 Mac Mini with 24 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage and have it shipped in just a few days. You’ll be paying $1,570, which is $471 more than what the Apple Store is charging. You can also get the M4 Pro Mac Mini for $1,570, which is only $100 more than Apple’s prices and delivers within a week and a half. These are really the only models I recommend buying at this point.
Even Higher Prices
Prices have increased across the board on all Macs. At the beginning of May, Apple quietly discontinued the starting configuration of the Mac Mini, which used to come with 256 GB of storage and cost $599. This meant the starting price for a Mac Mini immediately jumped to $799.
Skip ahead to the end of June, and the 256-GB configuration has been brought back for $100 more at $699 (while the 512-GB model is also now up $100 to $899), in line with the price increases made to MacBooks. But the Mac Studio is where things have become very expensive. The starting price of the M4 Max Mac Studio went up to $2,499, a $500 hike. The most powerful option, the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, went from $3,999 to $5,299. Not only are we still waiting months for these devices, but they now also cost up to 25 percent more.
Read the full article here