They dropped the 512gb m3 because they couldn’t supply the bin in a sensible time frame due to ram shortages .They up’d price of ram increases also + of course Apple ram tax .
With m5 I guess there might not be a 512gb option initially . Clearly Apple can weather it better than some suppliers but they are experiencing issues . Ram shortages are set to continue into 2027/28 .
So Apple are suffering ram increase costs , ram shortage, high demand for high bin and a new version on route . So bit of a perfect storm tbh .
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/06/mac-mini-and-mac-studio-long-shipping-delays/
or as chat would say ….
You may be right that Apple sold through the amount of high-memory M3 Ultras it planned to build.
But that still doesn’t prove the wider memory shortage is irrelevant, and it definitely doesn’t prove Apple will offer M5 substitutions to people waiting on M3 orders.
So at the moment the solid bit is just this: high-memory Apple SKUs are hard to get. The rest is theory.
Honestly though, he sounds like one of those people who wants to win the mechanism, not discuss the outcome.