Apple refreshes MacBook Pro and iMac with new M6 chip, holds Pro and Max versions back

Apple on Tuesday introduced a refreshed 14-inch MacBook Pro and a new iMac, both built around the M6 chip, the company's first processor made on a 2-nanometer manufacturing process. The announcements, made through press releases rather than a live event, update Apple's entry-level laptop and all-in-one desktop lines without touching the higher-end Pro and Max chip tiers that have anchored the MacBook Pro for the past five years.

The new MacBook Pro keeps its existing Liquid Retina XDR display and aluminum chassis but gains a 12-core CPU, a 12-core GPU with a Neural Accelerator built into each core, and a dual 16-core Neural Engine. Apple says the chip delivers up to 30 percent faster graphics and up to 1.9 times faster on-device AI performance than the M5 model it replaces, with battery life rated at up to 24 hours — a figure confirmed on Apple's own technical specifications page for the laptop, which the company calls the longest battery life ever in a Mac. The new iMac carries the same M6 silicon in 10-core and 12-core configurations, adds Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and keeps the seven-color palette and 24-inch 4.5K display design that has defined the machine since 2021.

Modest upgrade, familiar price

Both machines arrive at prices unchanged from their predecessors. The MacBook Pro starts at $1,999, or $1,899 with education pricing, and the iMac starts at $1,499 for the 10-core model and $1,699 for the 12-core version, according to Apple's own listings. Pre-orders for both open October 28 in 35 countries and regions, with deliveries and in-store availability beginning November 6.

Independent coverage from MacRumors, which has tracked Apple's chip roadmap closely, noted that the faster 170GB/s memory bandwidth Apple advertises for the M6 is reserved for MacBook Pro configurations with 24GB or 32GB of unified memory; the base 16GB model runs at the slower bandwidth of its predecessor. Reviewers have generally suggested existing M5 MacBook Pro and M4 iMac owners have little practical reason to upgrade, since the gains are concentrated in AI-related tasks rather than everyday performance.

The M6 chip itself is a bigger technical step than the price tags suggest. It is the first Apple silicon built on a 2-nanometer process, a manufacturing jump that typically lets a chipmaker pack more transistors into the same area and cut power use for a given level of performance. Apple's own comparisons lean on that generational distance rather than on the immediate predecessor: the company says the M6 MacBook Pro is up to 11 times faster at graphics and up to 13 times faster at AI tasks than the original M1 model from 2020, a framing aimed at the large base of Mac owners who have not upgraded in several years rather than at M5 owners from twelve months ago.

A deliberate gap at the high end

What is missing from Tuesday's announcements is as notable as what is in them. Apple did not introduce M6 Pro, M6 Max or M6 Ultra chips alongside the base M6, breaking with a chip-tier pattern it has followed since the first Apple Silicon Macs launched in 2020. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported in June that Apple plans to skip those higher tiers entirely, moving instead to an M7 generation built primarily around on-device AI processing, with a base M7 expected in the first half of 2027 and M7 Pro and Max chips following later that year. Engadget's report on the shift, citing Gurman's sources, said an M7 Ultra could follow in 2028, and noted it remains unclear whether the change would delay a rumored touchscreen MacBook Pro.

That gap matters because Apple is holding a separate, invitation-only event in Los Angeles this week, where it is expected to unveil its first touchscreen MacBook Pro with an OLED display, a product professional users and the broader market for high-end laptops have anticipated for years. Reports citing Gurman say the new design is expected to carry existing M5 Pro and M5 Max chips rather than M6 variants, since none exist, and that pricing could land around $2,899, roughly $400 above the current M5 Pro model, largely because of the cost of OLED panels. Apple had not confirmed those details as of Tuesday.

The sequencing — a routine chip refresh for the cheapest Mac laptop and desktop one day, followed by the splashier design overhaul of the pricier model using older chips — is unusual for a company that has generally paired its biggest industrial-design changes with its newest processors. It suggests Apple judged the AI-focused M7 architecture important enough to delay the Pro and Max tiers by roughly a year rather than rush them out alongside the base M6.

Who buys these machines, and what happens next

The immediate buyers affected are students, small businesses and consumers shopping at the low end of Apple's Mac lineup, where price sensitivity is highest and the M6's AI-oriented gains are least likely to be the deciding factor. Apple's vice president of hardware engineering, Shelly Goldberg, framed both products in those terms in the company's releases.

"iMac is the world's best all-in-one, and today it raises the bar yet again," Goldberg said in Apple's press release announcing the new desktop.

Education and small-business buyers who rely on Apple's financing will see the MacBook Pro and iMac offered on monthly installment plans in the United States, before taxes and any trade-in credit, according to Apple's own purchasing pages. Enterprise IT buyers refreshing fleets of entry-level machines are the other obvious audience, since the M6 chip's AI performance gains are most relevant to features like on-device transcription, image generation and Apple's expanding on-device AI toolset.

For prospective buyers of Apple's higher-end laptop, this week's Los Angeles event is the one that will determine whether to wait. If Gurman's reporting holds, the OLED MacBook Pro will debut with chips a generation behind the one Apple just shipped in its cheapest laptop, a trade-off Apple is evidently willing to make to get a long-delayed display technology to market without waiting for M7 Pro and Max silicon that is not expected until late 2027. Apple is likely to detail pricing, exact chip configurations and ship dates for that machine directly through its own channels once the event concludes.

Apple has not said whether it plans to update the 13-inch MacBook Air, Mac mini or Mac Studio with M6 chips before the end of the year; those machines currently run M4 and M5-generation silicon. The company's next scheduled disclosures of substance are likely to come with its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report, when it typically gives initial sales commentary on products launched during the quarter, including, this year, the first full week of M6 Mac sales.