With all eyes focused on the upcoming iPhone 18 launch (and likely Apple’s first foldable iPhone, too), not many expected Apple to announce new products before next month.
Yet that’s just what Apple did today. The company unveiled two new desktop computers—an updated Mac Studio and Mac mini. But boy will they cost you.
Apple announces new chips and new desktop Macs
Today, Apple unexpectedly announced a slew of new products.
They include two entirely new chipsets, the M6 and M5 Ultra. The M6 is especially notable as it’s the company’s first chip based on TSMC’s 2-nanometer process.
The current M5 series of chips found in Macs and the A19 chips found in iPhones are based on a 3-nanometer process (2nm chips are more power-efficient and slightly more computationally powerful than 3nm chips).
The new base model Mac mini will get the M6 chipset, and there is also a higher-end model available with the M5 Pro chip, which, despite being from an earlier generation, is actually much more powerful than an M6, thanks to the number of CPU and GPU cores Apple has stuck onto the M5 Pro.
The new Mac Studio, which has replaced the Mac Pro as Apple’s most powerful desktop offering, gains the M5 Max and the all-new M5 Ultra. Both chips can run circles around the new M6.
However, despite their chip differences, both the Mac mini and Mac Studio are widely popular with similar groups of people: those who want to run large language models and agentic AI locally on their devices.
This popularity has led to months-long waits for orders. And that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.
While Apple has announced the new desktop computers today, they won’t actually ship until September 22—nearly a month from now.
Apple raises prices yet again
The Mac mini, in particular, used to hold a lot of appeal among consumers due to its exceedingly low price. When it redesigned the Mac mini in 2024, Apple charged a paltry $599 for it (or $499 if you were a student).
But thanks to the AI-fueled memory shortage, Apple was forced to finally raise prices earlier this summer.
In one fell swoop, Apple raised the entry-level Mac mini from $599 to $799 in June. And unfortunately, with the announcement of the new Mac mini today, Apple has once again raised its price.
Now the Mac mini starts at $899. And that’s just for the entry-level M6 model. If you want the M5 Pro model, you’re looking at $1,699 before tax.
Of course, those prices look positively cheap compared to the price of the new Mac Studio. The M5 Max version of that starts at $2,499, and the M5 Ultra version starts at a staggering $5,499.
Yes, gone are the days when Apple’s tiniest Macs had the tiniest prices.
And unfortunately, such price increases appear to be the new normal and will likely continue for quite some time. The AI-fueled memory shortage, which is raising component prices across the board, is only expected to grow worse going into 2027.
The last Apple products of Tim Cook’s career
While the new Mac mini and Mac Studio are notable for their power and their price increases, they are also notable for one other reason: They are likely the last new products Apple will release under outgoing CEO Tim Cook’s leadership.
Cook steps down as CEO of Apple exactly one week from today, on September 1. This means that unless Apple has another surprise product announcement in the next seven days, Apple has now released everything it ever will under his reign.
All eyes will now be focused on incoming CEO John Ternus. Expect him to take the spotlight when Apple unveils its new iPhones in September, which should include the company’s first foldable smartphone.
