Rumors of an OLED touchscreen MacBook Ultra have been swirling for months now, but what about the rest of Apple’s MacBook Pro lineage? Well, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has the answer — reporting that we’ll see a 14-inch M6 MacBook Pro launch later this year.
However, with the M7 MacBook Pro reportedly launching very soon after with a ground-up redesign, I think you may want to wait it out if you want the latest and greatest. Let’s break it down.
M6 was ready ‘months ago’
The first bit of news from Bloomberg’s reporting isn’t the biggest surprise. Companies plan their silicon roadmaps and test them years in advance, and Apple has apparently had its 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 ready “months ago.”
This falls into the predictable chip cycle of Apple, and we’re expecting this to launch at the end of this year with the same design as you’ve grown accustomed to over the past few years.
But while you usually get a year with this being the latest chip before the Cupertino crew updates, that gap looks to be a lot shorter this time around.
M7 MacBook Pros for the first half of 2027
Gurman has already reported that Apple is skipping the M6 Pro and M6 Max to “meet growing demand for on-device AI capabilities and more graphics-intensive software.” Adding more color to this launch timeline, Bloomberg believes the M7 MacBook Pro could launch as soon as the first half of next year.
That rapid release cadence would leave the M6 MacBook Pro a little bit in no man’s land — not to say it would be a bad laptop. Apple silicon continues to be miles ahead of the competition in terms of raw performance and power efficiency.
But if you’re a speeds and feeds guy (like me), this could leave you with some serious FOMO if you bought that model, only to see the new one come out with much faster unified memory bandwidth and an overhauled GPU. Plus, a new chip is not the only thing coming for the M7 model…
The redesign is not just for the Ultra
Rumors and leaks strongly suggest that we’re still in line for a redesigned OLED MacBook Ultra — possibly at the end of 2026 with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. If that’s the case, pay close attention to that slimmer design and the new innovations it brings with it, because Bloomberg reports the M7 MacBook Pro it’s getting a new design that’s “in line” with these new touchscreen Pros (and the Ultra).
Of course, this timeline is uncertain, and the RAM price crisis that Apple responded to by raising its prices across the board may throw a wrench in the works. But it’s interesting to see the speed which the company wants to burn through its next chip generation.
Outlook
I can only make guesses as to why this is happening here, so let me go get my tin foil hat and start asking some questions.
- Is Apple seeing the future of computing accelerate towards local agentic AI that needs a vastly different chip architecture? Possibly.
- From a manufacturing standpoint, would it be easier for Apple to just build MacBook Pros and Ultras into similar shells, rather than have one stick to the old one? Maybe.
- Does Apple have a ton of OG MacBook Pro shells that it doesn’t want to waste? Seems likely.
Whatever the reason, I don’t doubt that the M6 MacBook Pro (just like basically every MacBook Pro of the Apple Silicon generation) is going to be a great laptop. But if Bloomberg is correct, this will be the last of its kind before Apple makes the jump to a new design and new future for its prosumer laptops.
So, the decision is yours: buy or wait? Personally, I’ll be waiting, but I’d love to know your thoughts.
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