Gurman's Power On: Apple skips a whole chip tier for the M7 Ultra

The M6 Pro, Max, and Ultra are being skipped

In today's edition of Power On, Mark Gurman reports Apple has compressed its Mac chip roadmap so heavily that the M6 Pro, M6 Max, and M6 Ultra are not shipping at all. Instead Apple is pushing straight to a full M7 family, Pro, Max, Ultra, and a new M8, all targeted for early 2027. That is a real change in cadence for a company that has shipped a steady Pro, Max, Ultra tier every generation for years. (Bloomberg)

An M7 Ultra built for 1.5TB of memory

The headline spec is the M7 Ultra, reportedly designed to support up to 1.5TB of unified memory. That is not a number aimed at video editors or even the heaviest Final Cut users, it is a spec built to go after the AI workstation and server market currently dominated by Nvidia and AMD. Apple rebuilding its Mac roadmap around AI infrastructure is the clearest sign yet of where the company thinks its hardware margins are headed next.

Also in the pipeline

Gurman also mentioned new Apple Pencil styluses in development and a push to make the iPhone's tap to pay feature more prevalent across Apple's own retail stores, both smaller notes but part of the same theme, Apple quietly widening its hardware and payments footprint heading into 2027.

My take

Skipping an entire chip tier is a tell. Apple does not usually break its own release cadence unless it feels real competitive pressure, and a 1.5TB memory ceiling has nothing to do with consumer laptops. I would not be surprised if this is the first real sign Apple starts selling directly into enterprise AI infrastructure instead of just powering its own Apple Intelligence stack. Worth watching whether pricing on the M7 Ultra machines reflects that shift too.

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