Apple's most powerful desktop is skipping a generation of chips.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple has two Mac Studio updates planned: an M5 Ultra refresh arriving later this year, and a more substantial M7 Ultra model targeted for 2028. The gap exists because Apple is canceling its M6 Pro and M6 Max chips, releasing only a base M6 this year and pushing the Pro and Max variants to the M7 cycle. That makes the M6 the first chip generation Apple has shipped without a Pro or Max tier — and means Mac Studio buyers get no M6 Ultra at all. The 2028 model is also being engineered with new internal architecture, including an improved heat sink aimed at better thermal performance.
The thermal angle is worth watching. Apple has reportedly tested the M7 Ultra with support for up to 768GB of unified memory — a figure that would dwarf anything in the current lineup. More memory means more heat, and memory chip supply issues have already pushed the launch timeline out. Whether Apple can actually ship that memory ceiling at launch is an open question.
For context, the Mac Studio has always been the machine Apple positions just below the Mac Pro while costing a fraction of the price. Skipping an entire chip generation effectively freezes that market for two years, which hands a longer window to workstation rivals. Anyone waiting for an incremental M6 Ultra bump should probably just buy the M5 Ultra this year — or sit tight until 2028 and hope supply chains cooperate.