When the ship times vary, a new product refresh could be around the corner.
Per MacRumors, Mac mini ship times on many Apple Online Stores have slipped to 5-7 business days.
This flies in the face of ship times for all the other Macs, as the other units on the online store have shipping estimates of “within 24 hours”. That said, most Apple Retail Stores do show availability for the mini, as does Amazon.com.
Apple sometimes does have temporary product shortages of computers mid-cycle, but they can also portend intentional drawdowns of stock ahead of a product refresh. The Mac mini is a candidate for an upgrade to Haswell processors, and it is coming due for a possible update in the near future.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.