Apple is changing up its Mac chip plans for the next few years, and AI is why. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports the base M6 chip is still coming this fall, but that’s it for the M6 family.
So that means no M6 Pro, M6 Max or M6 Ultra. Instead, Apple is going straight to the M7 instead. It has skipped an Ultra chip before, like with the M4, but dropping every high-end version of a lineup is new.
Gurman says Apple taped out the M7 (that’s when the design gets locked in) just six months after doing the same for the M6. The base M7 should land in the first half of 2027, with the M7 Pro and M7 Max at the end of that year and the M7 Ultra in 2028.
Apple already had big neural engine upgrades planned for the M7, and Gurman says the company decided those were worth rushing rather than finishing the M6 line. The M7 Ultra is where it pays off. Gurman was told the chip is a huge jump for AI performance, getting it closer to dedicated AI chips like Nvidia’s Blackwell.
That Ultra chip could also power Apple’s next round of AI servers. A beefier server built on the M5 Ultra is coming soon, code-named J246, but Gurman says engineers are already working on an M7 Ultra server chip for 2029. The new Ultra can reportedly handle up to 1.5TB of memory, about double what the M5 Ultra supports.
Also coming? Apple is said to be working on M8 chips with even more AI power, including one code-named Soko due by 2028. There are other high-end Mac chips in the works called Cardinal. The 2028 batch moves to a 1.4nm process for better efficiency.
New Apple Pencils coming
Gurman also reports two new Apple Pencils are due next year alongside the new iPad Pro. The first is code-named B582 and updates the cheaper Pencil that charges over USB-C. The second, B632, is a new version of the Apple Pencil Pro from 2024.
Apple is working to meet new EU rules about batteries being easily replaceable, and Gurman says these Pencils might get new battery systems because of it. Current Apple Pencils are glued shut and a huge pain to fix, basically irreplaceable.
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