Why I am holding out for the M6 MacBook Professional

Apple’s put itself in an uncommon scenario with the MacBook Pro. An up to date mannequin with an M5 processor is predicted by the top of 2025, or in early 2026 on the newest, and can most likely draw within the regular crowd of customers searching for a spec bump. However the firm can be rumored to be engaged on an M6 model already, which may ship in direction of the top of 2026 — so hypothetically, you possibly can find yourself shopping for a brand-new laptop in March, solely to have it outclassed six or seven months later.

Rumors declare that the M6 mannequin will likely be a significant redesign, wherein case it could be price ready to see what it would seem like. For some individuals, nevertheless, the M5 mannequin may nonetheless find yourself being the higher deal. All of it relies on how a lot efficiency you want, the specter of value hikes, and whether or not Apple has realized its lesson from prior MacBook overhauls.

What Apple has deliberate, and why it may very well be an issue

Haunted by butterfly ghosts

Whether or not or not they arrive to fruition, a number of of the M6 Professional’s rumored adjustments ought to generate zero controversy. Primarily, I am considering of the transfer to a notchless OLED show, which is lengthy overdue. A notch has by no means made sense on a laptop computer, not when Apple may’ve simply stuffed cameras into the bezel. OLED, in the meantime, has been obtainable on Home windows laptops for years, together with my current gaming rig. That includes the tech in a $1,600-plus skilled laptop computer needs to be de facto.

The pc may get a 5G mobile choice, which may very well be useful for the minority of customers who do not wish to tether to their smartphone once they’re away from Wi-Fi. Maybe the wildest declare is that Apple may add a touchscreen. I’ve my doubts about that one — whereas that is one other expertise Home windows PCs have supplied for a very long time, Apple has been fairly immune to the concept of a touchscreen Mac, preferring to steer these patrons in direction of an iPad as an alternative. Nonetheless, it could be a welcome addition, particularly if it included Apple Pencil help for illustration and picture modifying.

My actual concern entails discuss that the M6 Professional will likely be thinner and lighter than its predecessor. On the floor, that sounds just like the least controversial factor doable. A 14-inch M4 mannequin weighs 3.4 kilos (about 1.5kg), which is sufficient to make journey and commuting worse should you’ve already received different issues dragging you down. Definitely, nobody likes scuffling with their laptop computer in the midst of a TSA screening.

In Apple-speak, nevertheless, “thinner and lighter” typically interprets into design compromises. Certainly, that is precisely what occurred to the MacBook Professional within the late 2010s. To streamline the pc, Apple eliminated a few of its ports, even though Execs typically type the core of a workstation. That was doubtlessly acceptable should you had a hub or a dock — however on prime of that, the corporate switched to its notorious “butterfly” keyboard design, meant to maintain MacBook keyboards as slim as doable. Faults with the tech had been so extreme that Apple was hit with a class-action lawsuit, and adopted a particular restore program because it transitioned again to scissor switches. My spouse can attest to how horrible the butterfly keyboards had been — her MacBook Air nonetheless has one, and attempting to sort any long-form textual content on it’s a nightmare.

Hopefully Apple has realized its lesson, however there is not any assure of that. Certainly, it appears to be making an identical mistake with the iPhone 17 Air, stripping away battery life and a secondary digicam within the title of creating the thinnest and lightest iPhone doable. It is a solution to a query nobody requested, most likely as a lot about slashing manufacturing prices as anything. Taking the identical knife to the M6 MacBook Professional may scare individuals into monitoring down M4 and M5 programs as an alternative.

And the hits simply hold coming

Tariff wars and the diminishing worth of Apple Silicon

Apple

Tech corporations typically increase costs alongside redesigned {hardware}, whether or not out of necessity, or just because they’ve needed to for a very long time. Think about the Nintendo Swap 2, which just lately launched for $450, whereas the unique Swap was simply $300 when it shipped in 2017. Adjusted for inflation, that is nonetheless over $50 additional.

Apple may simply fall into the identical boat, given the continuing affect of the Trump administration’s tariff conflict. MacBook Execs are manufactured in nations like China and Vietnam — each of which have been slapped with excessive import tariffs. That would spike the price of present fashions, not to mention overhauled ones with touchscreens, OLED panels, and/or 5G modems. The truth is, exterior of Apple consuming the associated fee, the one methods out of this lure are import exemptions, renegotiated commerce offers, or Apple by some means relocating MacBook manufacturing domestically. That final choice is extraordinarily unlikely, regardless of Trump’s protests.

The one US-based Apple manufacturing unit in the mean time is a Mac Professional plant in Austin, Texas, and constructing a brand new one able to serving American MacBook demand may take years, assuming there’s sufficient native expertise to employees it. The American electronics manufacturing sector is a shadow of what you will discover abroad.

Tariffs would not be such a problem for Apple if it weren’t for the truth that most individuals simply do not want an M6 processor. An M1 Max chip continues to be greater than adequate for video modifying, and full overkill should you’re attempting to run Safari, Mail, or Pages. There are common advantages to newer chips, after all, reminiscent of higher recreation efficiency, and sooner crunching of AI features, however you do not want the bleeding edge to see them. I can think about many patrons taking a look at an M6 Professional however then deciding to trace down a used or refurbished mannequin as an alternative.

If you happen to insist on shopping for new {hardware}, the most secure resolution could also be to choose up an M5 mannequin within the subsequent few months, as I instructed firstly of this piece. In the end, although, we’re all going to must play it by ear on whether or not Apple’s subsequent massive redesign is sensible.