Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#1

Post by thm » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 12:41 PM UTC

Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio
macrumors.com

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#2

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:11 PM UTC

Time to bring back the Xserves, I guess.

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#3

Post by taskoutputs2k » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:13 PM UTC

just a real bummer that they raised the prices so much

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#4

Post by AlexandrB » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

taskoutputs2k wrote: post #3

just a real bummer that they raised the prices so much

I suspect it can't be helped at this point. RAM is the new gold. Valve even had to increase the price for a 4 year old piece of hardware[1].

[1] https://tech-insider.org/ca/steam-deck-price-increase-2026/

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#5

Post by compounding_it » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:18 PM UTC

More customers is generally a good problem to have in most businesses. Just that the situation is very paradoxical given the supply shortages.

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#6

Post by snarkyturtle » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:18 PM UTC

taskoutputs2k wrote: post #3

just a real bummer that they raised the prices so much

It definitely puts it out of the range of every day users but a non-insignificant proportion of people who use it for ai have become multi-millionaires because of ai. So there's definitely no shortage of people who have no problem paying those high prices.

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#7

Post by lenerdenator » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

taskoutputs2k wrote: post #3

just a real bummer that they raised the prices so much

[flagged]

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#8

Post by noman-land » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

snarkyturtle wrote: post #6

taskoutputs2k wrote: post #3

just a real bummer that they raised the prices so much

It definitely puts it out of the range of every day users but a non-insignificant proportion of people who use it for ai have become multi-millionaires because of ai. So there's definitely no shortage of people who have no problem paying those high prices.

Citation needed.

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#9

Post by comrade1234 » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:22 PM UTC

I wish they sold something that could go in a colo - redundant power supplies, lights out management, etc. you know they have them internally...

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#10

Post by dewey » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 1:25 PM UTC

comrade1234 wrote: post #9

I wish they sold something that could go in a colo - redundant power supplies, lights out management, etc. you know they have them internally...

> you know they have them internally...

What makes you think that? There's a lot of data centers that sell you access to colocated Mac Mini's, they have added FileVault unlock via SSH in the boot process which also makes things easier. There's not that many reasons to run a Mac in the cloud unless you have some very specific Mac related workload.