Apple continues to experience production delays caused by COVID-19-era factory shutdowns, and the most affected products are its custom 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro configurations. Long story short, you’d be lucky to get one of these 2021 MacBook Pro models by the end of June 2022.
In a recent Bloomberg report, China’s zero-tolerance policy for COVID-19 outbreaks appears to be the cause of the long delivery time estimates. And at least 30 Taiwanese companies have suspended production in China due to lockdowns to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
On April 13, estimated delivery dates for nearly all custom 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro configurations in the US have been pushed back to June 16. A few days later, it is already pushed back another week to June 21 for delivery and Pickup. And it’s not just for new orders — many orders placed between February and now are also delayed.
For example, I ordered a custom 14-inch model in early February with an initial delivery estimate of April 13th. The end date was pushed back to April 29 in the last days of March and again to June 21 on April 16. Each time it was pushed back, an authorization was placed on my payment card.
Apple website States that “[it] receives authorization to debit your account before shipping your item(s). “So authorizations usually mean the product is ready to ship. However, for delayed MacBook Pros, the authorization is placed to confirm it’s still valid and has a high enough balance to complete the purchase, according to an Apple representative – an attempt by Apple to avoid even more delays. Authorization should be gone in a week, more or less, according to the bank.
Production shutdowns in China show no signs of slowing down, so it’s very plausible that the June 21 delivery deadline will be pushed back further for custom orders.
If you want the base model, you can probably pick it up now or in a day or two from your local Apple Store. However, delivery estimates are also long, currently peaking on June 8 for most of the United States. Basic models include:
- 14-inch M1 Pro with 8-core CPU, 14-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine, 16GB memory and 512GB SSD
- 16-inch M1 Pro with 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine, 16 GB of memory and a 512 GB SSD
- 16-inch M1 Pro with 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine, 16GB memory and 1TB SSD
All M1 Max configurations are delayed. Most other Apple computers (13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, Mac mini) do not hang.
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