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Apple Unveils 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6, Boosting AI Performance, Starting at ¥339,800

DevicesOctober 28, 20261 min read

Apple has announced a new 14-inch MacBook Pro with its M6 chip. It is faster at AI tasks, and it costs 339,800 yen in Japan and up.

What happened

On October 27 (US time), Apple announced a 14-inch MacBook Pro with the new M6 chip. Compared with the M5 model, it is up to 30% faster at graphics and up to 25% faster at AI work. Pre-orders in Japan start October 29 at 2:10 a.m., and sales begin November 6.

Key numbers and facts

Starting price in Japan: 339,800 yen
Graphics: up to 30% faster than the M5 model
AI processing: up to 25% faster than the M5 model
Neural Engine: up to 1.9 times faster than the M5 version
Memory: 16 GB standard, up to 32 GB; storage: 1 TB to 4 TB

What the M6 chip includes

The M6 has a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU, each with 2 more cores than the M5. Each GPU core has a Neural Accelerator to speed up AI work. The chip also has two 16-core Neural Engines. These help run large language models (LLMs) on the laptop itself and help with tasks like image generation. Apple says the first word of an LLM answer appears up to 1.3 times faster than on the M5, and up to 13 times faster than on the M1.

Why it matters

Apple is pushing AI that runs directly on your device. Faster chips mean quicker AI answers and smoother creative work, such as 3D rendering and coding. Only the standard 14-inch model gets the M6 for now. The higher-end M5 Pro and M5 Max models and the 16-inch model are still sold alongside it.

What to watch

Apple's product event in Los Angeles on October 28, called "Pro and tell."
Rumors of a MacBook Pro with a touch screen and an OLED display.
Whether the M6 comes to the higher-end MacBook Pro models later.

Glossary

M6: Apple's new computer chip that does the main work inside the laptop.
Neural Engine: A part of the chip built to speed up AI tasks.
LLM: Large language model, the type of AI that powers chatbots like ChatGPT.

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