A lot has been made of the fact that Apple has been behind in AI for the last few years. I’m not here to deny that in the slightest. Siri is atrocious. The Apple Intelligence models aren’t exactly living up to their lofty branding, either.
But this week, I thought it might be worth trying out some AI features that could benefit from their own computer. A sandbox where I could play without nuking my decades of photos or my real work. Sounds like a job for a Mac mini, right? Turns out every other AI enthusiast in Melbourne has had the same idea, and they’re basically sold out. Some new models are even showing availability dates of August. 5 months away!
I can’t even wait a week, let alone months. Patience is not one of my virtues.
Keeping an eye out, I spotted refurbs early in the week, but they were gone by the time I got around to an order at the end of the day. As were the base models that popped up in store today. But playing around with the various upgrade configurations, I found the holy grail: an in-stock Mac mini M4 with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. Unfortunately it meant a trip to Chadstone, but sometimes sacrifices need to be made in the name of progress.
And now it’s sitting on my desk waiting to become a workforce of agents. As soon as I figure out the right way to set that up. And what to do with them.