Apple may take “several months” to catch up to Mac mini and Studio demand

苹果可能需要“数月”时间才能满足 Mac mini 和 Mac Studio 的市场需求

Apple’s Mac mini and Mac Studio desktops have been increasingly difficult to buy over the course of the year—multiple configurations are listed on Apple’s site as “currently unavailable,” which almost never happens, and others will take weeks or months to ship if you order them today. A top-end version of the Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM was delisted from Apple’s store entirely.

今年以来，苹果的 Mac mini 和 Mac Studio 台式机变得越来越难买——苹果官网上多款配置显示为“目前缺货”，这种情况几乎从未发生过；而其他型号如果现在下单，则需要数周甚至数月才能发货。一款配备 512GB 内存的顶配版 Mac Studio 甚至已从苹果商店完全下架。

Current Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed the situation on Apple’s Q2 earnings call yesterday as part of a larger conversation about how Apple is navigating component shortages, and he partly blamed the shortage on the popularity of those desktops among users looking to run AI agents and other tools locally.

苹果现任首席执行官蒂姆·库克（Tim Cook）在昨日的第二季度财报电话会议上谈及了这一情况，作为讨论苹果如何应对零部件短缺的更广泛话题的一部分。他将部分短缺原因归咎于这些台式机在希望本地运行 AI 智能体及其他工具的用户中非常受欢迎。

“Both [the Mac mini and the Mac Studio] 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,” said Cook. “We think looking forward that the Mac mini and the Mac Studio may take several months to reach supply-demand balance.”

库克表示：“（Mac mini 和 Mac Studio）都是运行 AI 和智能体工具的绝佳平台，客户对此的认知速度超出了我们的预期，因此我们看到了高于预期的需求。我们预计，Mac mini 和 Mac Studio 可能需要数月时间才能实现供需平衡。”

Cook wasn’t specific about what components were driving the Mac mini and Studio shortages, though he did say that generally, “availability of the advanced [manufacturing] nodes our SoCs are produced on” was constrained, and “we have less flexibility in the supply chain than we normally would.” In other words, it has become harder for Apple to go to TSMC and ask for more chips because TSMC doesn’t have the spare manufacturing capacity.

库克并未具体说明是哪些零部件导致了 Mac mini 和 Studio 的短缺，但他确实提到，总体而言，“我们 SoC 所采用的先进（制造）工艺节点的可用性”受到了限制，且“我们在供应链中的灵活性不如以往”。换句话说，苹果现在更难向台积电要求增加芯片产量，因为台积电已经没有多余的制造产能了。

Cook said these constraints “primarily” affected the iPhone, though, and only affected the Mac “to a lesser extent.” As we wrote last month, the extent of the shipping delays can probably be blamed on multiple factors. AI-related demand for the desktops and chip shortages are probably factors, but Apple is also said to be planning replacements for both systems with Apple M5-series chips later this year, and it’s common for models to see their ship times slip when replacements are imminent. Cook’s “several months” estimate could easily include the introduction of new models, plus whatever time Apple needs to catch up to pent-up demand afterward.

库克表示，这些限制“主要”影响了 iPhone，而对 Mac 的影响“程度较轻”。正如我们上个月所写，发货延迟的程度可能归因于多种因素。与 AI 相关的台式机需求和芯片短缺可能是原因之一，但据称苹果也计划在今年晚些时候用 Apple M5 系列芯片更新这两款系统，而当新品即将发布时，旧款机型的发货时间延长是很常见的现象。库克提到的“数月”预估很可能包含了新机型的发布时间，以及随后苹果满足积压需求所需的时间。

Cook also noted that “customer response to MacBook Neo has been off the charts, with higher-than-expected demand” and that Apple “set a March record for customers new to the Mac, partly due to the Neo.” (Note that “a March record” is not the same thing as “an all-time record,” but regardless, it seems that demand for the Neo has been healthy.) But MacBook Neo availability has been much better than for the Mac mini or Studio. A Neo ordered directly from Apple will usually arrive in two or three weeks, but this time window has stayed roughly the same since early March. The Neo also remains widely available for same-day shipping or pickup at third-party retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, which is not true of most Mac mini or Studio models.

库克还指出，“客户对 MacBook Neo 的反应非常热烈，需求超出了预期”，并且苹果“创下了 3 月份 Mac 新用户数量的纪录，部分归功于 Neo”。（请注意，“3 月纪录”并不等同于“历史最高纪录”，但无论如何，Neo 的需求似乎一直很健康。）不过，MacBook Neo 的供货情况要比 Mac mini 或 Studio 好得多。直接从苹果订购的 Neo 通常会在两到三周内送达，自 3 月初以来，这个时间窗口基本保持不变。Neo 在亚马逊、沃尔玛和百思买等第三方零售商处也广泛供应，支持当日发货或到店自取，而大多数 Mac mini 或 Studio 机型则无法做到这一点。

Supply constraints aside, Apple’s Q2 2026 was a successful one for the company. Apple made $111.2 billion in revenue, a 17 percent increase over Q2 of 2025, thanks to strong growth from iPhone 17 sales and its Services division. The Mac also grew 6 percent year over year despite the shortages affecting the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and MacBook Neo. But Apple isn’t immune to the industry-wide RAM shortage: Cook said that Apple expected “significantly higher memory costs” for Q3 than it paid in Q2 and that “memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business” going forward.

撇开供应限制不谈，苹果 2026 财年第二季度表现依然成功。得益于 iPhone 17 的强劲销售和服务部门的增长，苹果营收达到 1112 亿美元，较 2025 年第二季度增长了 17%。尽管 Mac mini、Mac Studio 和 MacBook Neo 受到短缺影响，但 Mac 业务仍实现了 6% 的同比增长。不过，苹果也无法幸免于全行业的内存短缺：库克表示，苹果预计第三季度的“内存成本将显著高于”第二季度，并且“内存成本将在未来对我们的业务产生越来越大的影响”。