It's a good time to be in the market for a MacBook, with affordable options like the MacBook Neo and powerful choices such as the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros. But Apple’s desktop computers are presenting quite another challenge, and not just because they're due for their own M5 upgrades.

Over the past few months, the Mac mini and the Mac Studio have become increasingly difficult to purchase. The 512GB M3 Ultra Mac Studio was taken off Apple's website, while other models now face extended shipping times that can stretch from days to months. Several configurations of both the Mac mini and Mac Studio are listed as 'currently unavailable' on Apple’s website, a situation that has virtually never occurred before.

This week, the baseline $599 M4 Mac mini, which offers 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, also earned this label for the first time. For most Mac mini models, you can still place orders but be prepared to wait between five and twelve weeks, depending on your specific configuration. Similarly, all M4 and M4 Pro Mac minis with certain specifications are currently unavailable.

The situation appears not limited to just the M4 chip generation; most M4 iMac configurations will arrive within a week or two of being ordered, suggesting it's more than an isolated component shortage issue. New MacBook Pros with large SSDs and 128GB of RAM are also seeing extended shipping times, but still arriving in under three weeks.