It’s been an unusually busy week for Apple announcements. On this week’s episode of The Woozad Show, we discuss the new Mac mini and Mac Studio, the M6 and M5 Ultra chips, and we invite you to Apple’s September event.
Apple confirmed on Wednesday that its annual iPhone event will take place on Wednesday, September 9 at Apple Park, starting at 10:00 a.m. PT, with select members of the media invited to attend. The event’s slogan is “Surprise and Shine.” Apple is expected to introduce at least six new products, including the Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4, iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the first foldable iPhone. Pre-orders should follow shortly thereafter, along with release dates for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 Golden Gate.
Apple announced the new Mac mini on Tuesday, featuring M6 and M5 Pro chip options. The machine gains an N1 networking chip, bringing Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and upgrades to 2.5 GB Ethernet as standard, up from 1 GB, with a 10 GB option. Thunderbolt 5 is limited to the M5 Pro model, which has three Thunderbolt 5 ports while the M6 model retains Thunderbolt 4. Genlock support over USB-C also allows you to sync the refresh timing of a display with a camera such as the iPhone 17Pro. Pricing starts at $899 with 16GB and 256GB, and rises to $1,699 for the M5 Pro at 24GB and 512GB. Pre-orders are now open, launching on September 22.
The M6 is Apple’s first 2nm chip. Its 12-core processor is divided into 2 super cores, 4 performance cores, and 6 efficiency cores, making it the first Apple chip to combine all three types of cores in a single design. Super cores are Apple’s next level, optimized for single-threaded speed. The 12-core GPU features a neural accelerator in each core for the first time on a Mac mini. The GPU also adds an updated shader architecture, dynamic caching and hardware-accelerated ray tracing, while an all-new 16-core dual neural engine doubles the edge computing compared to the previous generation, with system frameworks capable of driving both engines at once. Memory starts at 16GB and goes up to 32GB, running at up to 170GB/s. The M5 Pro scales even further, up to an 18-core CPU, 20-core GPU, and up to 64GB at 307GB/s.
The new Mac Studio arrived alongside the Mac mini, with M5 Max and M5 Ultra chip options. The M5 Max offers an 18-core CPU with 6 super cores and 12 performance cores, a GPU with up to 40 cores with neural accelerators in each core and up to 128 GB of memory at 614 GB/s, with the GPU running up to 50% faster than the previous generation. Both configurations upgrade to a next-generation SSD architecture over PCIe Gen 6 for up to twice the storage performance, and gain up to six 120Gbps Thunderbolt 5 ports and the same genlock support as the Mac mini. Apple’s N1 chip also brings Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 to “Mac Studio.” Pricing starts at $2,499 for the M5 Max at 36GB and 512GB, and $5,499 for the M5 Ultra at 96GB and 1TB, with the 512GB memory option not arriving until late October.
The M5 Ultra is Apple’s first quad-die chip, using a next-generation version of UltraFusion to join two dual-die M5 Max chips into a single processor. The result is a processor with up to 36 cores, 12 super and 24 performance, delivering 1.25 times the single-threaded performance and 1.3 times the multi-threaded performance of the M3 Ultra. Its GPU of up to 80 cores is the most powerful Apple silicon GPU ever and the first on an Ultra chip to feature neural accelerators. Second-generation dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading, and third-generation ray tracing boost graphics by 40% compared to the M3 Ultra, and the chip features a 32-core Neural Engine. Memory reaches 512 GB at 1.2 TB/s, representing a 50% increase in bandwidth.
Other announcements this week included a new, softer Apple polishing cloth for $9, down from $19, and refreshed US Magic Keyboards for Macs, now featuring glyphs instead of edge text. The Apple Support line 1-800-APL-CARE is also now answered by a generative AI assistant in the United States and Canada.
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If you haven’t already listened to the previous episode of The Woozad Show, check out our discussion with YouTuber Michael Fisher about the top rumors surrounding the “iPhone Ultra” and how the device might compare to its competitors.
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