Apple Puts Its M6 Chip in a New 14-Inch MacBook Pro and iMac

Apple announced a new 14-inch MacBook Pro and a new 24-inch iMac on Tuesday, the first Macs built around its M6 processor, and leaned heavily on artificial intelligence performance to sell them.

The announcements came a day after Apple introduced a new iPad mini and a day before a product event the company has billed as “Pro and Tell,” according to TechCrunch and Engadget.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,999 and comes in space black and silver. Its M6 chip has a 12-core processor and a 12-core graphics unit, and the laptop comes with 16 gigabytes of memory, expandable to 32. Apple says it delivers up to 30 percent faster graphics and up to 25 percent faster AI work than the previous model with the M5 chip, and rates its battery for up to 24 hours. It adds Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 and keeps a familiar set of ports, including HDMI, an SD card slot, a headphone jack, MagSafe charging and three Thunderbolt 4 ports, both outlets reported.

The larger 16-inch MacBook Pro was not updated and continues with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, Engadget reported.

The iMac starts at $1,499, keeps its 24-inch 4.5K display and comes in seven colors. Apple claims on-device AI tasks run up to five times faster than on the M4 iMac it replaces. It offers up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports and runs macOS 27.

Pre-orders for both machines begin Wednesday, and they go on sale Nov. 6, according to both outlets.

The emphasis on AI runs through both announcements. Apple’s headline claims for each machine are about how quickly it handles AI tasks on the device itself, rather than on general speed alone, a sign of how central those features have become to the company’s pitch.

There are reasons to wait for independent testing. Every performance figure in the announcement comes from Apple, most are phrased as “up to,” and they compare against different earlier chips, which makes them hard to weigh against one another. Engadget called the decision to leave the 16-inch model on the older chip a downside, and noted that the iMac’s display is unchanged and that it does not adopt the faster Thunderbolt 5 standard. Buyers who have waited for a larger iMac will keep waiting.

For owners of recent Macs, the upgrade may be modest. For people still using machines several years old, Apple is betting that faster AI features, longer battery life and newer wireless standards will be reason enough to buy.