Apple’s newest Macs are now open for preorder. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with the new M6 chip and the refreshed 24-inch iMac with the same chip can be ordered starting today, Wednesday, October 28, 2026. Both machines arrive in stores and at customers’ doors on Friday, November 6.
The headline is simple: this is a speed and AI upgrade, not a redesign. If you own an older Mac, especially one with an Intel chip or an early Apple silicon chip, Apple says the jump will feel big. If you bought a Mac last year, the change is smaller, and waiting for independent reviews makes sense.
What we know / What we don’t know
What we know:
- The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 starts at $1,999 in the US ($1,899 with education pricing).
- The 24-inch iMac with M6 starts at $1,499.
- Preorders opened October 28, 2026. Availability begins November 6, 2026.
- The M6 chip has a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU. Apple says graphics are up to 30% faster than the M5, and AI work is up to 25% faster.
- Battery life on the new MacBook Pro is rated at up to 24 hours.
- Both machines get Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Apple’s newer N1 wireless chip.
What we don’t know yet:
- How the M6 performs in independent, real-world testing. Apple’s numbers come from its own tests.
- Final details and prices for the touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro models expected at Apple’s “Pro and Tell” event. Reports put starting prices near $2,899 for the 14-inch model and at least $3,399 for the 16-inch model, but Apple has not confirmed those prices.
- Whether the touchscreen models will ship on the same November 6 date. Reports suggest they could, but that is not confirmed.
What Apple actually announced
Apple announced the new 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 in a company press release. The company describes the M6 as having the world’s fastest CPU core, with two more CPU cores and two more GPU cores than the M5. The chip also has Neural Accelerators built into every GPU core and a Dual 16-core Neural Engine, which Apple says makes on-device AI work much faster.
In plain terms, that means tasks like editing photos, rendering 3D graphics, compiling code, and running AI tools on the machine itself — rather than sending the work to a server — should run faster. Apple says language-model prompt processing is up to 13 times faster than on the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1, and up to 1.3 times faster than on the M5 model. Graphics rendering in Blender is up to 11.7 times faster than on the M1 model, and code building in Xcode is up to 2.5 times faster.
Those are Apple’s own comparison numbers, and they compare against much older machines in some cases. The fair comparison for most buyers is against the M5: up to 30% faster graphics, up to 25% faster AI work, and a Neural Engine up to 1.9 times faster. That is a solid step forward, not a revolution.
The new MacBook Pro keeps the features that made the current model popular. It has a Liquid Retina XDR display with up to 1,600 nits of peak HDR brightness, a nano-texture display option for bright rooms, a 12MP Center Stage camera, a six-speaker sound system, three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, MagSafe charging, an SDXC card slot, and a headphone jack. It supports fast charging, reaching 50% charge in about 30 minutes with a compatible higher-wattage USB-C adapter. It comes in space black and silver, runs macOS 27, and starts with 16GB of unified memory, configurable up to 32GB, with memory bandwidth up to 170GB/s.
Battery life is the other big claim: up to 24 hours, which Apple calls the longest ever in a Mac. Apple says users coming from Intel-based Macs gain up to 14 extra hours, and users coming from M1 gain up to four more hours. As with all battery claims, real life will depend on how you use the machine, so treat 24 hours as a best-case number, not a promise for heavy workdays.
The new iMac, in brief
The refreshed 24-inch iMac gets the same M6 chip. Reports describe the same core story: faster on-device AI, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Apple’s N1 wireless chip, plus an optional 2.5Gb Ethernet port and PCIe 5.0 SSD support on the iMac. The design, display, and color options are unchanged, and the starting price stays at $1,499. If you want a simple all-in-one desktop for a home office or a family room, the iMac remains the easy pick in Apple’s lineup. If you need a portable machine for heavy creative work, the MacBook Pro is the one to look at.
The touchscreen MacBook Pro question
Here is where buyers need to be careful. Apple is also holding a “Pro and Tell” event in Los Angeles, and reports from MacRumors and Bloomberg say its first touchscreen MacBook Pro models — a 14-inch and a 16-inch with OLED displays — will be announced there, with preorders also opening Wednesday. Reported starting prices are around $2,899 for the 14-inch touchscreen model and at least $3,399 for the 16-inch model.
Those touchscreen models are a separate, bigger change than the M6 refresh. A touchscreen on a Mac would be a first for Apple, and it would likely cost much more than the $1,999 M6 MacBook Pro. If you are shopping this week, do not confuse the two: the $1,999 machine you can preorder today is the regular M6 MacBook Pro, without a touchscreen. Wait for Apple’s event announcements before assuming anything about the touchscreen models’ prices, ship dates, or features.
Should you buy now, wait, or skip?
Buy now if: you use an Intel Mac or an M1 Mac, you need a new machine for school or work, and the $1,999 starting price fits your budget. The performance and battery gains over those older machines are large, and the November 6 ship date is close.
Wait if: you own an M5 MacBook Pro, or you are curious about the touchscreen models. The M5-to-M6 jump is real but modest, and the touchscreen announcement could change the lineup — or at least change what you want to compare before spending.
Skip or hold off if: your current Mac still handles your daily work fine. A faster chip does not make email, web browsing, or video calls meaningfully better, and prices on today’s models may soften once the new lineup settles.
One more practical note: Apple offers the M6 MacBook Pro from $38.99 per month for 36 months through Apple Upgrade in the US, excluding taxes and any trade-in credit, and education pricing brings the starting price to $1,899. Trade-in credit for your old computer can lower the cost further. Check Apple’s trade-in page before you order, and compare the total configured price — memory and storage upgrades add up fast — against what you actually need.
The bottom line
Apple’s M6 refresh is a straightforward, useful upgrade: faster graphics, faster on-device AI, better wireless, and a big battery-life claim, at the same starting prices as before. Preorders are open today, October 28, and the machines ship November 6. The more dramatic news — touchscreen Macs — is still unfolding at today’s event, and buyers should keep the two stories separate until Apple confirms the details. For more explainers like this, see our tech and consumer coverage and our story on the possible new dwarf planet found beyond Pluto.
Sources: Apple press release, “Apple introduces the new 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6” (via BusinessWire); Ars Technica; MacRumors; 9to5Mac; Particle News (all October 28, 2026). Prices and dates for the M6 models are from Apple’s announcement; touchscreen OLED prices and dates remain reported, not confirmed.
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