Why are the Mac mini and Mac Studio gradually becoming impossible to buy?

Pending refresh? RAM shortage? AI agents? There are many possible explanations. 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