Apple has reportedly cancelled its upcoming M6 Pro and M6 Max processors, shifting its strategy to leap directly to the next-generation M7 family for higher-end Macs. Apple will now focus on the base M6 chip before jumping straight to the M7 family of chips next year.

The report comes from Mark Gurman (Bloomberg), who notes that Apple is currently testing the base M6 SoC in the base MacBook Pro model, focusing on CPU microarchitecture and NPU improvements for local AI processing. Memory bandwidth is getting an upgrade to around 200GB/s, up from 123GB/s on the current base M5. The integrated GPU also sees a 20% increase in core count, bringing it to 12 GPU cores.

This would mark the first generation in which Apple will skip the Pro and Max variants. Instead, those higher-end tiers will supposedly debut with the M7 series as part of a complete SoC overhaul focused on local AI. The base M7 processor should arrive in H1 2027 with roughly 240GB/s of bandwidth, serving as Apple's first Intel-manufactured design built on the 18A-P node. Expect the M7 Pro and M7 Max to follow in late 2027, followed by an M7 Ultra for the Mac Studio in 2028.

Meanwhile, the report claims Apple is testing an M5 Ultra SoC for an upcoming Mac Studio update. This high-end configuration features about 36 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores, and approximately 768GB of memory, designed for local AI workloads and professional content creation.

KitGuru says: Do you think Apple will skip the higher tiers of the M6 series? 

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