If you’re looking to buy a HomePod mini now, chances appear to be slimmer as one of Apple’s Authorized Resellers, B&H, now lists all HomePod mini models as discontinued. It’s not just B&H, other resellers, including Adorama, Target, Walmart, Verizon, and Best Buy, and even Staples list HomePod mini as either “out of stock” or “backordered.” With several rumors of the next HomePod mini, this suggests that a hardware refresh could be just around the corner.
Apple introduced the HomePod mini in October 2021, and it came in several fun colors: Orange, Yellow, Blue, White, and Space Gray, and it even came packaged in a color-matching box that for the color you chose. Sometime later, Apple switched to a plain white box regardless of the color of the HomePod mini that you pick. Also, in July 2024, Apple replaced the Space Gray color with the Midnight color.
The current HomePod mini packs in the S5 chip, so rumors indicate that the next HomePod mini may feature a more modern S-series chip (perhaps the S10 chip found in Apple Watch Series 11, SE 3, and Ultra 3) as well as Apple’s N1 networking chip that’s in the iPhone 17 series, iPhone Air, and iPad Pro (M5). Tomorrow is Veterans’ Day in the U.S., so we could see such a hardware refresh as early as this coming Wednesday (November 12). Other products that we can expect to be refreshed soon are the Apple TV 4K and AirTag.
