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 adjustments to the corporate’s retailer web page noticed by MacRumors. Solely configurations that include at the very least 512GB of storage and up can be found, which implies the Mac mini now successfully begins at $799. The tiny desktop’s well-liked use as a house for native AI brokers doubtless performed a component 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 among the best offers the corporate had provided in years. With choices for a number of tiers of Apple’s M4 chip, at the very least 16GB of RAM, at the very least 256GB of storage and sufficient ports to get issues accomplished, the Mac mini was remarkably succesful. That additionally made it well-liked among the many AI crowd, first for its means to run native massive language fashions, and later as a devoted laptop for AI brokers like OpenClaw. A mixture of demand from AI tinkerers and rising constraints round sourcing issues like reminiscence and storage could have motivated Apple to take away its most cost-effective mannequin, at the very least for now.
CEO Tim Cook dinner recommended as a lot throughout Apple’s most up-to-date earnings name. “We expect, trying ahead, that the Mac mini and Mac Studio could take a number of months to achieve provide demand steadiness,” Cook dinner mentioned. “Each of those are wonderful platforms for AI and agentic instruments and the client recognition of that’s occurring sooner than what we had predicted, and so we noticed greater than anticipated demand.”
Apple has been higher than most at weathering “RAMaggedon,” or at the very least hiding its results throughout its product strains. 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, presumably in gentle of the altering price of RAM and storage. In that case, the blow was softened by the supply of the MacBook Neo, which provided lots of the ability of Apple’s Macs for a way more reasonably priced $600. There’s at the moment no equal for the Mac mini, although, and it isn’t clear when, if ever, Apple will begin promoting one thing comparable for that very same low-cost beginning worth.
