Apple warns of Mac shortages this Christmas
9 November 2026 · Mac news
Apple has warned that Macs and iPads will be in short supply over the Christmas period. If your current Mac is starting to struggle, this is a good moment to think about what you would do if it stopped working in December, before you are forced into a rushed decision.
What Apple said
Apple reported its results for the July to September quarter on Monday 2 November 2026. It was John Ternus's first results call as chief executive, after he took over from Tim Cook on 1 September.
The Mac had a strong quarter. Apple's chief financial officer, Kevan Parekh, said Mac revenue was $10.8 billion, up 24% on the same quarter last year, "despite supply constraints", and credited the MacBook Neo and MacBook Pro. These are Apple's worldwide figures in US dollars, not UK sales. iPad revenue fell 10% to $6.2 billion, which Apple put partly down to the same supply problems.
Looking ahead, MacRumors reported that Apple expects Mac and iPad supply to be constrained in the October to December quarter, mainly because of memory, as demand has been higher than Apple expected. Parekh said the company's forecast of 7% to 10% revenue growth "reflects our best view of constrained supply".
Memory costs are the other part of the story. Parekh described memory pricing as "unprecedented", said Apple expects even higher memory costs this quarter, and said that beyond December Apple sees memory prices continuing to rise. He also confirmed that Apple raised prices on many products, including Mac and iPad, at the end of June.
Apple did not say when supply would catch up with demand, and it gave no UK-specific information. We have not seen any official UK delivery times, so we are not going to guess at them.
What this means if you own a Mac
For most people, nothing changes today. Your Mac keeps working exactly as before. The practical difference is that if it fails over the next few weeks, a like-for-like replacement may not be as quick or as easy to get as usual, particularly if you need a specific configuration. Memory has also become more expensive for Apple, and Apple has already put its prices up once this year.
That makes the Mac you already own more valuable to you than it might have been a year ago. A few sensible steps now can save a lot of stress later.
Back up before anything goes wrong
If your Mac died tomorrow, could you get your files back? Plug in an external drive and set up Time Machine, and check that iCloud really holds the folders you think it does. If your Mac stops working and has no backup, talk to us before anyone attempts a repair: we offer a free assessment for Mac data recovery, and the order in which things are done can matter.
Fix small faults while they are small
A battery that drains quickly, a charging port that only works at an angle, a fan that roars all the time or a screen with a faint line across it rarely fixes itself. These faults tend to be easier to deal with before they turn into a Mac that will not start. If you are not sure what is wrong, our full diagnostics will tell you, so you can decide calmly.
When repair makes more sense than replacing
Many faults that sound terminal are not. A Mac that has had a drink spilled on it, will not power on, or has been told it needs a new logic board can often be brought back. We carry out chip-level logic board repair, which means fixing the faulty part of the board rather than replacing the whole board. That can be the difference between keeping a working Mac in December and waiting for a new one.
Repair is not always the right answer. If your Mac is very old, no longer gets security updates, or the repair would cost close to the value of the machine, we will say so honestly and help you get your files off it first.
Can an upgrade buy you time?
On some older Intel Macs, more memory or a solid-state drive in place of an old hard drive can make a slow machine feel very different. This is not possible on Apple silicon Macs, where the memory and storage are built in, so if you have one of those, choosing the right specification when you buy matters even more. If you are weighing up an upgrade, ask us which options apply to your exact model.
If you are buying a new Mac this Christmas
If you were planning to buy anyway, it may be worth ordering earlier than usual rather than leaving it until the week before Christmas, and keeping your old Mac working until the new one arrives so you can move your files across without pressure. Do not wipe or sell your old Mac until you have checked that everything has moved over.
Sources
- Apple's Q4 2026 Earnings Call Takeaways, MacRumors, 2 November 2026
- Apple Reports 4Q 2026 Results: $30.7B Profit on $114.5B Revenue, MacRumors, 2 November 2026
- Apple forecasts its biggest revenue quarter ever despite supply constraints, 9to5Mac, 2 November 2026
Get a quote
If your Mac is showing signs of trouble, call 020 7394 2525 or bring it to 80 Willow Walk, London SE1 5SY. We are open 9am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday, with bike collection in London and courier collection across the UK.