Apple’s M5-powered Macs might have a short shelf life, with the M6 chip possibly debuting “in the near future,” according to a new report.
But first, Apple will unveil MacBook Pros, Mac Studio and MacBook Air equipped with the M5 chip in the first half of 2026.
Apple’s silicon machine keeps accelerating
Apple unveiled the M5 chip in mid-October 2025 alongside refreshed iPad Pro and MacBook Pro models. The processor features a redesigned GPU architecture, with each GPU core getting a dedicated Neural Accelerator to boost AI performance. Apple said the chip delivers the world’s fastest performance cores, offering a 15% performance uplift over the M4.
Despite the Pro, Max and Ultra tiers not debuting yet, the M5 ranks among the fastest SoCs around. Yet, it appears Apple will not sit on its laurels and unveil the M6 SoC sooner rather than later. At least that’s what Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman says in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter.
The quick turnaround is not unprecedented. As Gurman points out, there was only a five-month gap between Apple announcing the M3 and M4 chips. The latter SoC debuted with the iPad Pro, while its Pro, Max and Ultra variants followed in the following months.
Apple could take the same approach again, launching the M6 chip in the next few months, with the more powerful, higher-end versions coming later in the year.
M5 Pro/M5 Max-powered Macs incoming
Before that, the company will reportedly unveil M5 Pro- and M5 Max-equipped MacBook Pros, Mac Studio and MacBook Air in the coming months. The new MacBook Pros could debut as soon as this week.
Gurman also says Apple plans to refresh the MacBook Pro in late 2026. As part of this update, the company will redesign the laptop. This would be the first major revamp since the 2021 model, which debuted the current design language.
Rajesh has been writing about consumer technology for over a decade, with a strong focus on iPhones, Macs and Apple’s ecosystem. He enjoys digging into Apple software updates, hardware changes, and discovering new Mac apps that make work faster and more enjoyable.
