THE SHORT VERSION

Apple's M6 Mac runs AI on-device — 25% faster, battery for a day

Satirical cartoon: a cheerful yellow AI brain works on a small M6 MacBook's screen beside a full green battery icon, while a sad anthropomorphic server rack slumps in an office chair holding a cardboard box of belongings, its power cable unplugged on the floor. — Machine Age Cartoon · Zimbo

Apple announced a refreshed 14-inch MacBook Pro with its new M6 chip on October 27. The chip pairs a 12-core CPU with a 12-core GPU and a doubled Neural Engine, which Apple says delivers up to 25 percent faster AI workloads than the M5 — and the company pitches the machine as a platform for running large language models locally, keeping the work on the device instead of in the cloud.

The laptop starts at $1,999 with 1TB of storage, pre-orders open Wednesday, October 28, and it launches Friday, November 6. Apple also claims up to 24 hours of battery life, the longest ever in a Mac — and the launch lands one day before its “Pro and tell” event, where a touchscreen MacBook Pro is expected.