Locator: 50616APPLE.
The most interesting story I've been following for me personally involves Apple.
See disclaimer. I am inappropriately exuberant about Apple. Not AAPL, but Apple. I said I was Apple's #3 fanboy decades ago. I remember writing on the blog that our younger daughter and I would take our prayer rugs and go down to the Apple store at the mall and pray in front of the doors before the Apple Store opened. The mall? I thought it was called the Gold Coast Mall, southern California. In fact, it was:
But I digress. So, see the disclaimer. I am inappropriately exuberant about Apple, just as I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken. But this post is about Apple, not Bakken.
I don't even know where to start. So, I'll start here.
Apple's M4 Mac Mini is sold out. Gone, gone, gone. Never to be replaced -- at least not with the M4.
So, where are these M4 Mac Minis going? My hunch: they're going overseas. Regardless, they're being bought by the truckload and shelves are being emptied. The MacMinis are being used for AI.
Really, really, really. Not really.
Indirectly they're being used for AI. A better way to say it: the Apple M4 Mac Mini is being used BECAUSE of AI, not FOR AI. It's a subtle difference but an important difference. And it became clear when Intel announced it 1Q26 earnings -- blowout earnings by the way. [Another digression: when earnings are so far better / worse than forecast, the question quickly becomes why? How did analysts miss this? In this case, it was easy. And connecting those dots confirm that this was a one-off quarter. It won't happen again.]
A clue in the next two screenshots, but in just one of the screenshots.
Wow, the dots connect.
I'm really proud of this one.
The first screenshot:
The second screenshot, the money shot:
Microsoft hates Apple. I assume Microsoft News (MSN) hates Apple.
By the way, a digression. Has anyone noticed how inexpensive top-end Apple products are getting? Exhibit A: the MacBook Neo.
But I digress.
Macrumors, link here:
Apple never sells out of anything. There may be delays in delivery, as there are now with regard to the Neo but Apple has not sold out of Neo. You can buy the Neo today, but it might be on backorder.
You cannot buy the M4 Mac Mini. It's sold out, gone forever.
Actually I'm wrong. Apple does sell out of stuff, but not in the way one thinks. Apple sells out of something for only two reasons, and the shelves go bare. The shelves go bare over a few months.
The two reasons Apple sells out of something:
- Apple has discontinued the item. Exhibit A: the Apple Newton;
- Apple is replacing / upgrading the item with a better, often thinner version.
So, fast forward:
The M5. The Apple M5
I don't think I have a page dedicated to Apple's M5 chip. The closest I come is to the Apple Page.
M6:
- update for new phones;
- TSMC 2nm process; significant advances;
- SoC: highly sophisticated, close stacking of CPU-GPU-memory components.
- memory: Samsung, SK Hynix, and/or Micron
M5:
- apparently Vision Pro now has the M5 chip -- September, 2025
- rumored to be available 4Q25 for iPad Pro (iPad Pro M5) -- October, 2025
- now available, review, March, 2026;
- Amazon's overall pick, January, 2026
- 11-inch iPad Pro M5 list price: $999; available at Amazon for $899
- for the MacBook Pro M5 delivery has been delayed from October, 2025, to early 1H26 (October, 2025)
- January, 2026, 14.2-inch: list price, $1,999; available at Amazon for $1,749
- MacBook Air M5, not yet released, January, 2026; likely to be released 2Q26; reports -- MacBook Air M5 will be announced / released early March, 2026;
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The Book Page
The best books I've read on this subject matter.
Winter reading program, 2025 - 2026:
- AI reading program (pulled forward from summer reading program, with additions):
- Alan Turing: The Enigma, Andrew Hodges, c. 1983.
- The Innovators: How A Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, Walter Isaacson, c. 2015.
- The Story of Semiconductors, John Orton, c. 2004. Incredible resource. Link here.
- The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created The Modern World, Simo Winchester, c. 2018.
- Chip War: The Fight For the World's Most Critical Technology, Chris Miller, c. 2022.
Without question, the most important for investing: Chris Miller's Chip War.
Without question, the best for understanding semiconductors: Orton's.
The most recent:
Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI, Anil Ananthaswamy, c. July 16, 2024, purchased March 18, 2026. Bought at Powell's Book at the Portland, OR, airport.
Over at the 2026 Summer Reading Program.
By the way, although I bought it some time ago, the following is on my 2026 SRP -- I'm reading it now. Finding it fascinating.
- The Jewish Annotated New Testament, NRSV, Amy-Jill Levine And Marc Zvi Brettler -- c. 2011, with new preface, 2016.
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More M4 Mac Mini Screenshots
