Apple Drops M6 Flagships; OLED MacBook Pro Ships with M5

Apple will introduce OLED MacBook Pro models using the same flagship M5 chips rather than new M6 professional processors, according to recent reporting. The company plans to ship touch-screen OLED MacBook Pros initially with M5 Pro and M5 Max processors.

Apple will not build M6 Pro, M6 Max or M6 Ultra; the company is moving directly from M5 to M7.

The change is striking for a company that had previously extended the M-series cadence. The M5 Pro and M5 Max, introduced last Esfand, will power the first wave of OLED MacBook Pros, and Apple does not plan a hardware upgrade for those models until late 2027.

Apple is reallocating development effort to the next major generation, the M7 family, and to compute infrastructure for artificial intelligence. Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman summarizes the shift this way: "Apple's work on the M6 chips is almost finished." The reporting frames the M6 Pro, M6 Max and M6 Ultra variants as effectively cancelled.

The roadmap that follows from that decision is clear in outline. High-end MacBook Pros with M7 Pro and M7 Max are expected in late next year. A base MacBook Pro with the M7 should appear during the next year, and the flagship M7 Ultra is planned for the first half of 2028. That schedule makes a new Mac Studio in 2027 considerably less likely, given the timing of the M7 Ultra.

Apple plans a dedicated event on 6 Aban in Los Angeles to show new products, including the OLED MacBook Pro with a touch display, an iPad mini with an OLED screen, a 14-inch MacBook Pro equipped with a base M6 processor, and a new iMac.