It should come as no surprise to hear that Apple is busy prepping its next M-series chips. After the M5 Pro and M5 Max got their start earlier this year, the next logical step is to introduce the M6 — inside the base 14in MacBook Pro, if the rumours are true. Apple’s newest laptop could be ready as soon as this year, Bloomberg suggests.
Where Apple will reportedly deviate from the playbook is what it’ll do after the M6 is introduced. That’s usually when Apple works on the Pro and Max variants, to have them ready a few months down the line. According to Mark Gurman, that isn’t the case this year. Instead, it’ll skip straight over to the M7 line-up.
Dashing through the Ms
All of the usual suspects will get hold of the M6 beginning later this year, starting with the MacBook Pro. Holding out for something a little more powerful might not work out as planned here, unless you don’t mind waiting ’til 2027 for that upgrade. Interestingly, the M7 seemingly won’t skip the Pro and Max refresh in 2027.
“The company is taking this unusual step in order to fast-track technologies that it originally planned to release later. The change should help meet growing demand for on-device AI capabilities and more graphics-intensive software,” Gurman wrote, confirming our suspicions that the change is rooted in Apple Intelligence.
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It would be the first time Apple hasn’t introduced Pro and Max variants for its in-house M chipsets. In the days of the M1, M2, and M3, the company even went as far as to release ‘Ultra’ models. Still, the M6 isn’t shaping up to be a slouch. China Times reported (via MacRumors) that the chip will utilise TSMC’s 2nm process, an upgrade over the 3nm process we saw with the M5 line-up.
When the M6 MacBook Pro lands on shelves later this year, it’ll be the first of the family to gain touchscreen OLED powers. It’s the M6 chip inside that’s notable, with Gurman suggesting it will have higher memory bandwidth at approximately 200GB/s. The idea is to speed up on-device AI tasks, as well as improve graphics performance. We’re sure Apple will have some more colourful words to go with it in the official reveal.
