GoKawiilOn its quarterly earnings call today, Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed the ongoing supply shortages for Apple’s pro desktop Macs. Many configurations of Mac mini and Mac Studio are completely out of stock at Apple Stores online.
Cook said customer interest in agentic AI use cases (like OpenClaw) is driving Mac mini and Mac Studio demand beyond what Apple predicted. Due to the ongoing industry constraints for advanced nodes and memory components, the company expects the supply shortages for these Macs to continue for the next several months.
It’s not just desktops. Apple is also forecasting ongoing supply constraints for the MacBook Neo. For Apple’s low-cost laptop, Cook says demand is “off the charts” and helped Apple set a record for acquiring new Mac users.
Here’s exactly what Cook said about Mac mini and Mac Studio customer adoption for AI:
“on the Mac mini and the Mac Studio, both of these are amazing platforms for AI and agentic tools, and the customer recognition of that is happening faster than what we had predicted, and so we saw higher than expected demand.”
Cook specifically said the availability of advanced nodes on which the Apple Silicon chips are produced is the primary constraint. He explained the company under-estimated how much it should make and there are significant lead times to meeting higher demand levels. As a result, it will take several months for the company to reach supply-demand balance on these machines.
The company also expects component memory pricing to continue to rise over the foreseeable future, and Apple is exploring “several options” to mitigate that impact.