The AI business’s demand for reminiscence, storage and highly effective chips has lastly come for the Mac mini. Apple has stopped promoting its most cost-effective $599 mannequin of the Mac mini, primarily based on modifications to the corporate’s retailer web page noticed by MacRumors. Solely configurations that include at the least 512GB of storage and up can be found, which implies the Mac mini now successfully begins at $799. The tiny desktop’s widespread use as a house for native AI brokers possible performed an element within the change.
Engadget has contacted Apple for affirmation that it is discontinuing the entry-level Mac mini. We’ll replace this text if we hear again.
When Apple began promoting the redesigned Mac mini for $599 in 2024, it was the most effective offers the corporate had supplied in years. With choices for a number of tiers of Apple’s M4 chip, at the least 16GB of RAM, at the least 256GB of storage and sufficient ports to get issues completed, the Mac mini was remarkably succesful. That additionally made it widespread among the many AI crowd, first for its skill to run native massive language fashions, and later as a devoted laptop for AI brokers like OpenClaw. A mix of demand from AI tinkerers and rising constraints round sourcing issues like reminiscence and storage might have motivated Apple to take away its most cost-effective mannequin, at the least for now.
CEO Tim Prepare dinner advised as a lot throughout Apple’s most up-to-date earnings name. “We expect, wanting ahead, that the Mac mini and Mac Studio might take a number of months to achieve provide demand steadiness,” Prepare dinner stated. “Each of those are wonderful platforms for AI and agentic instruments and the shopper recognition of that’s occurring quicker than what we had predicted, and so we noticed larger than anticipated demand.”
Apple has been higher than most at weathering “RAMaggedon,” or at the least hiding its results throughout its product traces. When the corporate up to date the MacBook Air with its M5 chip, it additionally bumped the storage to 512GB and the beginning worth to $1099, probably in gentle of the altering value of RAM and storage. In that case, the blow was softened by the provision of the MacBook Neo, which supplied quite a lot of the facility of Apple’s Macs for a way more reasonably priced $600. There’s at present no equal for the Mac mini, although, and it isn’t clear when, if ever, Apple will begin promoting one thing related for that very same low cost beginning worth.
