Supply chain issues in the industry continue to affect Apple customers looking to purchase a new Mac. Today, the $599 priced M4 Mac mini model with 256 GB of storage has completely sold out at the Apple Store. This means that Apple no longer allows you to order this product; it simply states "currently unavailable."

In fact, the situation is even worse. Apparently, any M4 Mac mini with 256 GB of storage is in the same situation, regardless of the RAM configuration. (Third-party retailers are not doing much better: Amazon is currently only selling the M4 Pro Mac mini).

We feel that the availability of the current Mac desktop series is worsening week by week. On April 11, we reported that Mac minis with 32 GB and 64 GB RAM options were no longer available for purchase.

Now, it seems that more models have become unavailable; the basic 256 GB storage option appears to have vanished from Apple's shelves.

The stock situation for other models is also not very plentiful. The Apple Store is quoting six-week wait times for the 512 GB M4 Mac mini, which is the shortest delay we could find. Some other models are reportedly giving shipping estimates of 9-10 weeks or longer, if they are available at all.

The main reason for this situation seems to be Apple's response to the industry-wide shortage of memory and storage components, prioritizing supply for the MacBook series. Demand for Mac minis may have also increased in light of the recent excitement around personal artificial intelligence.

Generally, decreasing availability can be a good indicator that a hardware refresh is on the way. Therefore, this could be a sign that the M5 Mac mini update is near.

However, this was also the theory for the Mac Studio — another Mac currently facing extremely limited stock — until Bloomberg reported that the M5 Mac Studio refresh would not arrive until October.