Apple’s busy launch week has just reached the Mac lineup, and it’s everything we rounded up earlier today in our what to expect piece. However, the 14-inch M6 MacBook Pro saw daylight a day earlier than we expected. Apple has also announced the M6 iMac, and if you were hoping for a fresh look, you’ll want to keep reading.
M6 Brings the Real Upgrade to iMac
Apple’s new iMac keeps the same 24-inch display and design as its predecessor. Everything that’s changed is on the inside. The M6 chip packs a 12-core CPU, a 12-core GPU, and a Dual 16-core Neural Engine, which is a major step up from a maximum of 10 CPU and GPU cores on the M4 iMac from two years ago.
Apple claims up to 40 percent faster CPU performance, 2 times faster graphics, 2 times faster storage, and 4 times faster AI performance compared to the previous M4 chip. The iMac also brings Apple’s N1 wireless chip to the mix, and best of all, you get everything at the same starting price of $1,499.
The 14-Inch MacBook Pro Gets the M6 Chip Too
The entry-level MacBook Pro moves from M5 to M6, with the same 12-core CPU and GPU setup. According to Apple, the new M6 model is up to 1.3 times faster than last year’s M5 MacBook Pro at LLM prompt processing, ray-traced rendering in Blender, and compiling code in Xcode.
Image processing in Affinity is up to 1.2 times faster, and connectivity gets a bump with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. Like the iMac, the design hasn’t changed at all. This means that the company’s big reveal tomorrow will feature all the goodies we have been expecting, with full focus. Pricing starts at $1,999 with 16GB of memory, unchanged from the M5 model.
There are no M6 Pro or M6 Max chips in this round, and we can expect them tomorrow at the company’s Pro and Tell event.
Pre-Order Dates and Why You Might Wait
Pre-orders for both Macs will open tomorrow, October 28, at 10:10 AM PT, and both launch on Friday, November 6.
The launch timing is no accident. Apple is widely expected to unveil its touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro tomorrow, around the same time pre-orders go live. If the 14-inch MacBook Pro is on your list, waiting a day to see what sits above it costs you nothing.
A Chip-First Refresh, and That’s Fine
These aren’t exciting updates on paper, and that’s fine. Same shells, same screens, faster silicon. But Apple held the line on pricing for both machines, and that matters more than a new look.
For anyone looking to upgrade from M1 or M2 hardware, a flat-priced iMac with this much extra headroom is an easy recommendation.
