Apple Stops Accepting Orders for Some Mac Mini and Mac Studio Models

[glockenSquish]

This makes me so angry. I was literally just about to buy a Mac studio. I have an enormous year-long project starting right now (music production) and desperately needed the upgrade (still running an Intel Mac). I wanted the Mac Studio for fear of the M5 MacBook Pro making fan noise when working on a large session. Also wanted higher ram in the Mac Studio. If they really are releasing a new line, announced at WWDC, that is pushing it for me and my project. Plus, it’s still a gamble.

 

[rikki_t]

The downside of non memory upgradable hardware was never made more apparent than now, if you are throwing 5K+ at a purchase and it's not what you want and you can't upgrade it later you are not going to make that purchase.

 

[Howard2k]

That's what I did. Let me tell you--the local AI models when you use 24 gb of RAM are terrible. They get most answers wrong. It will look like you are running ChatGPT or whatever locally, but its knowledge is trash. Wasn't worth it for me, and I'm told you need at least 100 gb to get an experience approaching the paid, cloud models.

For factual stuff yeah they struggle, but for other tasks, more chat / creative oriented, they can be very useful.

 

[theluggage]

I would love to have someone explain the thinking to me.

Because it seems to me that AI is a solid evolutionary tech concept still in its early years.

Remember the "Dot Com" bubble?

Dot-com bubble - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Lots of money got recklessly invested in companies with "(1) Web 2.0, (2) ??? (3) Profit!" etc. business plans until it all ended in a massive crash when the profits failed to roll in. Lots of companies failed, others got zillions wiped off their share prices.

Did the technology of internet, online shopping services vanish without trace? No - ask Amazon.

Also:

Tulip mania - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

...and yet in 2026, there are still tulips growing in the garden.

 

[marclondon]

Surely there are only a small number of machines ordered with large amounts of ram so maybe it isn't a shortage being the issue.

 

[Rychiar]

That all seems wayyy too far away . Get your **** together apple

 

[theluggage]

And yet, you can buy a MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with any RAM configuration that you want. The M5 variants of the Studio and Mini are very close and that’s the main reason this scenario is playing out.

It's not even a dichotomy - Apple aren't going to desperately run around securing long-term sources of RAM suitable for M4 Pro/Max/M3 Ultra chips if they're going to be discontinued soon. The sales of M4 Pro Minis and Studios will be falling off now in anticipation of new models & they're going to need all the RAM they can get when the M5s launch.

However, if there is a shortage I expect the MacBook Pros will get priority...

 

[Sirmausalot]

Given the planning of this sort of thing is years in advance, the current component shortage shouldn't be the limiting factor for current or near future releases. I would guess the M5 studio and mini configs are coming soon, but that release will certainly take into account current issues going forward. (Such as no 512gn option)

 

[theluggage]

Since unified memory is integrated into the same chip as the processor, I don’t understand why the availability and price of non-unified memory chips should affect the price and availability of Apple’s ARM chips.

It's not integrated into the same chip as the processor.

M-series processors have surface-mount RAM chips soldered to the processor package alongside the processor to keep the leads as short as possible & maximise - but they are still perfectly standard, separately packaged LPDDR5x chips as used in other systems that use low-power RAM.

"Unified memory" just means that the same memory is shared by the CPU, GPU, NPU, SSD controller etc. There's nothing special about the RAM chips (apart from being low power).

 

[Gloor]

I lean towards memory shortage as well. Reason is simple, Apple always prioritised MBP line as that is their bread and butter (on computer side). Mac Mini is super small % and Studio is probably similar. So if there is a shortage it makes sense that they prioritise the product that sells the most and the margin is probably better too (compared to Mac Mini for example)

I can order a 16” MBP M5 Max with 128GB RAM with delivery for April 24th so it’s definitely not memory related and more due the incoming M5 Mac Studio and Mac mini refresh.

 

[Corefile]

Base Mini needs to be upgraded to 512MB of disk space.

 

[cavemandaveman]

We see variations on this "I wish this brainless bubble would hurry up and burst. Nobody is too big to FAIL" kind of comment with some frequency. I would love to have someone explain the thinking to me.

Because it seems to me that AI is a solid evolutionary tech concept still in its early years. No doubt some of the paths that AI growth may take will prove unsuccessful, "fail," but that is just the way growth works. IMO AI is not going to fail even if some current growth directions prove to have been bad choices financially for the folks wealthy enough to be investing in option A versus option B versus option C...

One has to be willfully ignorant at this point to look at AI and see a bubble. It's already doing real, valuable work in software engineering even in its infancy. It'll find useful applications in other industries too.

AI capex is large but it's still only about 2.5% of US GDP. You only need moderately large improvements in productivity to pay for that investment.

Like you say, there will be winners and losers (I wouldn't necessarily be placing large bets on OpenAI) but betting against the AI industry on the whole is foolish.

Also, more RAM production will eventually come online and prices will normalize. It's not like it's a finite resource, it just takes time to expand capacity.

 

[ItsASpider]

If the Mac mini will only be updated by the end of the year, I hope they just straight skip to M6.

 

[lowendlinux]

I can't wait for the rampocolypse to be over

 

[Corefile]

If the Mac mini will only be updated by the end of the year, I hope they just straight skip to M6.

I won't buy another Mini until M8 or M9 chip versions.

 

[ddhhddhh2]

This is the demonstration that money cannot buy everything. When there is no memory chip available, there is none. At least for a time. There are things that are on limited supply, be careful with these.

The problem isn’t that there’s no supply, it’s that the advanced packaging capacity is seriously limited, and the reason is obvious, most of it is being used for top-end AI right now.

The reality is Apple isn’t in the VIP room anymore, they’re sitting on a bench outside. And yeah, a lot of others are still standing in line, they standing. Apple just kinda has to get used to that bench now, since that VIP room used to be pretty much theirs.

 

[reyesmac]

Who is to say Apple didnt just get a massive order for them and instead of selling to the public they are fulfilling the more lucrative contract first? If PC's for ai server farms are becoming too expensive no the mini and studio don't seem like a rip off anymore. So those ordering in bulk can use those instead.

 

[TucsonBroker]

What's sad is that I ordered a basic mini for my 90 year old father and he has to wait a month because of this chip shortage and the openclaw demand on them. He just wants it to surf the web, things should not be this difficult!

 

[sw1tcher]

This is the demonstration that money cannot buy everything. When there is no memory chip available, there is none. At least for a time. There are things that are on limited supply, be careful with these.

Wrong conclusion.

If someone wanted a Mac mini or Studio in a no longer offered configuration and that person had enough money, they could in$entivize a memory maker to produce the needed RAM or buy out the memory maker to get it produced.

 

[IvyKing]

The downside of non memory upgradable hardware was never made more apparent than now, if you are throwing 5K+ at a purchase and it's not what you want and you can't upgrade it later you are not going to make that purchase.

The memory is potentially upgradable if one has the appropriate surface mount soldering tools and the skill to use them. Going back to connectorized memory would entail a substantial performance hit due to longer access times and fewer data lines. Same thing with processors, socketed versions would have slower I/O.

I'm glad I got my 64G M4 Pro Mini when I did.

 

[MilaM]

When even Apple has to prioritize RAM supply, things must be really bad. I would expect higher RAM configurations get much more expensive in the near future.

 

[whitby]

We live in a strange world in which a technology that is meant to benefit us all is actually starving us of products we would like to buy. This is assuming that this is the root cause of this change in availability of the higher RAM options for these products.

I am certainly not sure I have ever lived where we have gone technologically backwards (and I have been around for a little, being well past retirement age). This is extraordinarily depressing. Apparently, I currently own products that I can no longer buy not because they are obsolete but because we do not have the resources to build them.

I suppose we will be going back to the horse and cart soon.....

 

[NewOldStock]

In with the New out with the Old nothing here.
Put the new RAM in the newer M6 waiting inline new.
Down sizing combinations sold to give room for the new M6 memory levels.
M6 needs RAM too.
If M6 is in the pipeline lets GO! Release The Beast!
So they do the RAM shuffle!

 

[Tagbert]

If the Mac mini will only be updated by the end of the year, I hope they just straight skip to M6.

The Mini and Studio are usually among the last Macs to get chips from a new generation. Speculation is that they will be updated just before WWDC in June. That is before the M6s will be ready so these updates are likely to be M5+. If the M6 comes out this fall or next spring, the Mini and Studio would probably be 3-6 months after that.

 

[Pinterra]

I hope to see a slew of used M4 models hit the market when all the OpenClaw users move up to M5

I won’t, but I can dream.