Apple unveiled two Mac updates on Monday (October 27), both powered by its M6 chip: the 24-inch iMac and the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro. The products arrive one week before the "Pro and Tell" event scheduled for Wednesday (October 28), where the company is expected to reveal what many analysts consider the most anticipated Mac in a decade: the first MacBook Pro with an OLED and touch screen.
The M6 chip, which debuted in the Mac mini and Mac Studio in September, now expands to the more affordable models in Apple's lineup. Apple claims the M6 delivers the world's fastest CPU core, with a processor of up to 12 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores — two more cores of each than the M4 in the previous iMac model. The result, according to the company, is a 30% improvement in graphics performance and a 25% boost in AI workloads over the previous M5 MacBook Pro.
But the real leap of the M6 isn't in raw core counts. It's in the neural accelerators. For the first time, each GPU core includes a dedicated neural accelerator, working in concert with the 16-core Neural Engine (actually a dual configuration with 16 cores per engine) to prioritize on-device AI tasks. This translates to smoother real-time dictation, enhanced photo editing tools, and LLM prompt processing speeds up to 13 times faster than the M1 MacBook Pro — the first Mac with Apple Silicon, released in 2020.
For the iMac, the jump is even more dramatic. Apple claims the M6 model is up to five times faster for on-device AI than the 2024 M4 iMac, and up to 18 times faster than the most popular Intel-based iMac. For users still running a 2020 Intel Mac (the M1 was released in November 2020), the leap is 2.5 times faster in spreadsheet performance and 12 times faster in local AI. Apple is explicitly targeting legacy hardware users.
The pricing, however, doesn't follow that same trajectory. The M6 MacBook Pro starts at US$ 1,999 — exactly the same launch price as the previous model, which means that, adjusted for inflation, the product is actually more expensive in real terms. The iMac holds at US$ 1,499 for the M4-equivalent model, but the 12-core M6 version climbs to US$ 1,699, which remains a steep price for an all-in-one desktop.
For US$ 1,999, you get a 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display with a 120Hz refresh rate, up to 24 hours of battery life (Apple claims the longest ever on a Mac), HDMI, MagSafe 3, three Thunderbolt 4 ports, an SDXC card slot, and a 12-megapixel camera. Unified memory starts at 16 GB, configurable to 32 GB, with bandwidth up to 170 GB/s — a modest increase over the M5's 153 GB/s.
Connectivity earns an upgrade. Both products support Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, representing a generational leap in bandwidth and latency. The 12-core iMac model also adds 2.5 Gbps Ethernet and support for two 6K external displays.
macOS 27 ships with the hardware and brings the new Siri AI to the Mac, which first arrived on the iPhone with iOS 27.2 in October. The assistant runs locally, supports six languages, and has daily usage limits — suggesting Apple plans to charge for additional access in the future. Siri, in this beta phase, can answer questions, search through messages, emails, and photos, and execute cross-app actions.
Apple's staggered launch strategy is deliberate. With the OLED iPad mini announced Monday (26th), the M6 iMac and MacBook Pro on Tuesday (27th), and the OLED touch MacBook Pro on Wednesday (28th), the company is stretching the hype for an entire week, keeping each product in the spotlight for 24 hours. It's a well-orchestrated marketing tactic, but it also reveals something about Apple's innovation velocity: the M6 is an incremental update, not a revolution. It consolidates the Silicon architecture Apple began building in 2020 and now extends across the entire Mac lineup — except the high-end Pro models, which will wait for the M6 Pro or M6 Max.
The question that remains is whether Apple's strategy of stretching product announcements across a week reflects genuine innovation or a need to manage the flow of incremental upgrades. With the M6, on-device AI finally stops being a gimmick and becomes the core of the experience. But the pricing barrier remains the most difficult challenge to overcome — even for those who can afford it, the real question is whether the M6 experience justifies upgrading when the M5, launched less than a year ago, still handles everything without breaking a sweat.
Sources: TechCrunch, The Next Web, Engadget
✓ Independent sources cross-checked and verified before publishing
