It’s a good time to be in the market for a MacBook, between the affordability of the MacBook Neo, the power of the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros, and the all-around appeal of the M5 MacBook Air. But Apple’s desktop computers are another story, and not just because they’re all about due for their own M5 upgrades.
Over the last few months, the Mac mini and the Mac Studio have gradually become harder to buy. The 512GB M3 Ultra Mac Studio was removed from Apple’s website, and other models of both desktops have seen their ship times slip from days to weeks to months. In the last couple of weeks, several other configurations of Mac mini and Studio have begun showing up as “currently unavailable” on Apple’s website, which virtually never happens even when Apple is planning an imminent hardware refresh.
This week (as spotted by MacRumors), the baseline $599 M4 Mac mini, which offers 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, earned the “currently unavailable” label for the first time.
You can still place orders for most Mac mini models. An M4 Mac mini with 512GB or more of storage and either 16 or 24GB of RAM will take between 5 and 12 weeks to arrive, depending on the specific configuration you buy. M4 Pro Mac minis with any storage configuration and either 24GB or 48GB of RAM will take a similar amount of time to arrive, with most models showing availability within 10 to 12 weeks.
All M4 Mac minis with 256GB of storage, all M4 minis with 32GB of RAM, and all M4 Pro Mac minis with 64GB of RAM are listed as “currently unavailable.” Mac Studio models with 128GB or 256GB of RAM are also listed as “currently unavailable.” Other Studio configurations list the same five- to 12-week wait times as the minis.
This does not seem to be an issue specific to the M4 chip generation; most M4 iMac configurations, including those with 32GB of RAM, will arrive at your door within a week or two of being ordered. It’s also not being caused exclusively by ongoing RAM and shortage storages—new MacBook Pros with 128GB of RAM and large SSDs will arrive within two or three weeks of being ordered.
