According to news on April 11, multiple high-end versions of Mac Studio and Mac mini are currently displayed as "temporarily unavailable for sale" on Apple's official website. Against the background of continued tight supply, it has intensified speculation about the imminent update of the M5 chip version.
Currently, in the Apple online store, the delivery time of some models has not only been delayed, but it has even become impossible to place an order for purchase. These include a Mac mini powered by an M4 chip and equipped with 32GB of unified memory, as well as a Mac Studio in at least two configurations.
Just a week ago, it was reported that the M3 Ultra version of Mac Studio equipped with 256GB of unified memory is not expected to ship until August or September. Apple’s official website gives a shipping time of 4–5 months. However, just a week later, the supply of this model seems to have deteriorated further, and now Apple simply no longer accepts orders for this model. At the same time, the Mac Studio equipped with an M4 Max chip and 128GB of memory is completely unavailable for ordering. Similarly, the M4 Mac mini 32GB version mentioned above has also been marked as "temporarily unavailable."
Updated information shows that the Mac mini equipped with the M4 Pro chip and equipped with 64GB of memory is now also displayed as "temporarily unavailable." In Apple's online store system, the "Currently Unavailable" status often means that the product is about to be completely removed from configuration options. A similar situation already occurred in March this year: at that time, the Mac Studio with 512GB memory configuration first experienced supply abnormalities and was subsequently removed from the configuration page.
While some other configurations of the Mac mini and Mac Studio are still available for purchase, delivery times are similarly pessimistic. Currently, Mac Studio versions with the M3 Ultra chip generally take at least five weeks to ship. As for the Mac mini, depending on the combination of memory and SSD storage, the waiting time for users ranges from one month to three months.
On the positive side, this series of shortages can be interpreted as a strong signal that the Mac mini and Mac Studio are about to receive an M5 chip upgrade. However, it is still unclear whether Apple is clearing inventory for new products, or whether it is related to the shortage of memory and storage chips currently encountered by the entire computing industry.
Apple management is expected to provide more explanation and context for this unusual supply situation during its next quarterly earnings call on April 30.