During his quarterly earnings conference call today, Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed ongoing supply shortages of Apple’s professional desktop Macs. Many Mac mini and Mac Studio configurations are completely out of stock in Apple online stores.
Cook said customer interest in agentic AI use cases (like OpenClaw) is driving demand for Mac mini and Mac Studio beyond what Apple predicted. Due to current industry constraints on advanced nodes and memory components, the company expects supply shortages for these Macs to continue over the coming months.
It’s not just about desktops. Apple also expects continued supply constraints for the MacBook Neo. For Apple’s low-cost laptop, Cook says demand is “off the charts” and has helped Apple set a record for acquiring new Mac users.
Here’s exactly what Cook said about customer adoption of Mac mini and Mac Studio for AI:
“On Mac mini and Mac Studio, both of those platforms are amazing for AI and agent tools, and customers are realizing that faster than we expected, and so we’ve seen higher demand than we expected. »
Cook specifically said that the availability of advanced nodes on which Apple Silicon chips are produced is the main constraint. He explained that the company had underestimated how much it was expected to earn and that there were significant delays in meeting higher levels of demand. It will therefore take several months for the company to achieve balance between supply and demand for these machines.
The company also expects the price of memory components to continue to rise for the foreseeable future, and Apple is exploring “multiple options” to mitigate this impact.
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