IT Home July 13 news: Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman revealed that Apple will release the standard M6 chip, but will not release the higher-end M6 Pro and M6 Max chips. In his latest issue of the (Power On) newsletter, he said this decision breaks the usual product release cadence, and the reason is AI.

IT Home noticed that Gurman explained: “Apple originally planned a major upgrade to bring neural-network processing capabilities to the M7 series, but ultimately decided the improvements were important enough to accelerate the release of the next generation of products, rather than finishing the entire M6 product lineup.”

He also said that Apple will similarly not launch an M6 Ultra chip.

According to the current plan, a new 14-inch MacBook Pro featuring the base-version M6 chip will be released later this year. Apple will then move directly to the M7 lineup: the base-version M7 chip is expected to launch in the first half of 2027, with the M7 Pro and M7 Max arriving in the second half of 2027, while the M7 Ultra is planned for release in 2028.

Gurman said that the M7 Ultra will bring “significant improvements” in AI performance in particular, and is expected to provide computing power for Apple Intelligence servers starting in 2029.

Gurman said, “AI is no longer just a feature that Apple chips need to support; it now determines how these products are designed and when they are released.”

Currently, the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips were released in March this year. Gurman still expects that the M5 Ultra will debut as soon as this year alongside the new Mac Studio.

Apple’s M-series chip release schedule is as follows: