Mac Studio and Mac mini are low-stock or unavailable with long delays
New models soon?
As noticed by many online recently, the top end configurations for the Mac Studio (128GB and 256GB RAM) and the top end configurations for the Mac mini (mostly with M4 Pro) are unavailable for delivery or pickup from online orders, with no clear reason as to why. Most other configurations, like the base models, are not shipping until mid-May, the website says.
This limited availability often happens near a big release or refresh, but since it is mid-April and we already got a slew of updates and events through the MacBook Neo, Air, Pro, iPhone 17e, and more, along with Apple's 50th anniversary, it is hard to see when another event could fit in. The closest date would be at WWDC in June, which would make sense for the Mac Studio or the Mac mini, given their use in coding environments. However, MacRumors reports that a September or October release for the M5 and M5 Pro Mac mini is their "best guess," along with a likely WWDC release of the Mac Studio.
The way that this is all falling into place is interesting, especially given the current state of the RAM crisis and Apple's Mac lineup. Apple just last month removed the 512GB RAM option for the Mac Studio, most likely because of the increasing cost and limited availability of RAM chips. While Apple has been less affected by the RAM crisis since their large quantities of orders have been placed strategically and in advance, the Mac Studio is a low-volume product, meaning that there will inherently be less resources given to it. Apple is willing (clearly) to give up some high-end availability that won't sell as well in order to keep costs down.
While costs are not necessarily decreasing, they are certainly steadying more than before, which allows Apple time to slow down old production and swoop in at the right time to ramp up production for new products (especially with the Mac Studio and its high RAM amounts). Hopefully this does end up enabling a Mac Studio or Mac mini launch soon, and the low current availability is because of an upcoming launch.
Plus, along with the recent news of driver signing for NVIDIA and AMD GPU's for TinyCorp's AI programs on Macs, the demand for these now significantly more configurable computers is much higher. This flexibility for AI with eGPUs may drive more people to Mac, which means that a new refresh could be in store.
Apple's Mac Studio and Mac mini limited availability is interesting and sheds light on the current state of the RAM crisis as a whole. We will have to wait and see what Apple does soon.
