Apple has quietly lowered prices on upgrades for its Mac mini computer. The company faced harsh criticism after it turned out that most users would have to add an additional 60% to the device's $499 (£ 339 in the UK) price tag before it could be considered a workable system.

Apple cut the price of upgrading to 1 Gb of memory by 31.5%, the price for adding Bluetooth and WiFi networking dropped 23.3% and an upgrade to a 80 Gb hard drive now only costs $50.

Sales for the device started last Saturday, but the Mac mini seems to have sold out already – waiting times in Apple's web store are 3-4 weeks both in the US and the UK.