Out of nowhere, Apple just announced the new M6 and M5 Ultra chips, along with the new Mac mini and Mac Studio that are equipped with them.
It's not surprising that Apple has stopped holding launch events for half of its products when the update is just a spec bump. But this one is still unusual in several ways:
Pre-orders open a full month ahead of actual availability.
The state-of-the-art 2nm M6 chip didn't wait for a more formal keynote announcement.
The base Mac mini jumped from $599 to $899 USD — a whopping 50% increase.
The Max/Ultra versions of the Mac Studio went up another $100/$200 USD on top of the June price update.
Especially with the 2nm M6 launch and the one-month pre-order window, I think Apple simply can't hold back the memory pressure any longer, and will have to stop supplying the current models. They would also rather halt supply for three additional weeks (assuming a normal pre-order window is one week) to stabilize the market than look purely reactive to the situation.
About two months ago, Apple already announced a wave of price increases driven by memory costs, and it actually discontinued the lowest configured M4 Mac mini. I guess they would rather lose some profit at the end of a product's lifecycle than introduce more interruptions, on top of all the other increases they already had to make.
Model / chip tier | Launch price | After Jun 25, 2026 | Aug 25, 2026 (new gen) | % vs launch | % vs Jun 25 |
Mac mini - Base (M4 > M6) 16+256 | $599 | N/A | $899 | 50% | N/A |
Mac mini - Pro (M4 Pro > M5 Pro) | $1,399 | $1,599 | $1,699 | 21.4% | 6.3% |
Mac Studio - Ultra (M3 Ultra > M5 Ultra) | $3,999 | $5,299 | $5,499 | 37.5% | 3.8% |
The memory price war has completely disrupted Apple's launch and pricing cadence. Apple is still trying its best to stabilize the market. Otherwise, how would it look to outsiders if a trillion-dollar company were purely reactive to the situation?
Memory supply is normally booked months ahead in a regular production cycle; in the age of AI, I can only assume it's now booked years ahead. As much as Apple would like to keep its costs low, it's clear that the current trend is out of their control. The good news for Apple is that with such a large product line, they don't have to worry too much about excess supply even if they booked it at a higher price — they can spread it across multiple product lines later if they can't return the inventory or renegotiate a better deal once the craziness ends. They can still book enough memory at a price they can still justify as reasonable.
With the current price increases and an average one-to-two-year product lifecycle, it also looks like Apple can't bring its average memory cost down enough over that period to offer the Mac mini and Mac Studio at more competitive prices — hence the 50% jump on the base model and a further increase on the higher-end models since two months ago.
The good news is for the memory makers. I think this is another strong indicator that the current bull market won't stop for another one to two years, and although much of that is already priced into their current share prices, I believe holding them longer is still a great opportunity.
Disclaimer
This post is my personal opinion and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or a solicitation to buy or sell any security. I'm not a licensed financial advisor, and nothing here is tailored to your financial situation, time horizon, or risk tolerance.