Apple Just Made Its First Product Announcements of the Season

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Credit: Apple

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Anyone who follows Apple news knows the company has some big announcements on the horizon. While we don't know the exact date yet, Apple typically hosts a big fall keynote in September to announce brand new products—including the latest generation of iPhones. This year should prove especially monumental, as the world expects Apple to reveal its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Ultra.

But while I expected to wait until next month to learn about Apple's newest devices, I was surprised to find Mac news on my feed Tuesday morning. Apple being Apple, the company made a few new announcements well ahead of its expected keynote, signaling both its enthusiasm for the Mac in this age of AI, but also that its fall event is likely going to be focused squarely on the iPhone. Here's what's new.

If you like making predictions about what products and services Apple will announce this year, make sure to check out Lifehacker's Big Guessing Game, which is currently in its third round. The winner will win the latest Apple Watch.

Apple's new Mac mini is more powerful (and expensive) than ever

The star of the show today might just be the new Mac mini. Apple's tiny Mac has been all the rage lately, with users buying them up to power AI agents like OpenClaw. While the previous generation of Mac mini was getting harder to find, Apple's refreshed models might make them more accessible—so long as you're willing to pay the inflated price tag.

At first glance, the new Mac mini looks the same as the previous Mac mini. Of course, the core upgrade is internal: Now, the Mac mini comes with one of two of Apple's M-series chips: the brand-new M6 and the existing, more powerful, M5 Pro. The M6 chip has a 12-core GPU (two more cores than the previous generation) with a 16-core NPU. Apple says that M6 has up to four times the AI performance as the M4 Mac mini, double the storage speeds and graphics, and up to 40% faster CPU gains. (Apple seems keenly aware that its core market for the mini is now AI users.) The M5 Pro, on the other hand, can ship with a CPU up to 18 cores and GPU up to 20 cores. You can upgrade the M5 Pro with up to 64GB of RAM, double the maximum memory of the M6.

Whichever Mac mini model you get, Apple says the machine comes with Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and 2.5Gb Ethernet—though you have the option to upgrade to 10Gb Ethernet, as well. You get two USB-C ports in the front with a headphone jack, as well as genlock support via USB-C for better sync between the display and your camera.

The new Mac mini is available to pre-order today. The M6 model starts at $899, while the M5 Pro model starts at $1,699. Both models are now $100 more than their previous-generation counterparts, which isn't surprising, seeing as the global memory crisis is pushing companies to raise prices across the board. Apple itself had already raised prices ahead of this release.

Apple's new Mac Studio comes with the new M5 Ultra

Apple's offer for users who want more power out of their Macs is the new Mac Studio. Again, this model looks similar to the previous one, but it's what's inside that's different.

The new Mac Studio comes with either Apple's M5 Max or its brand-new M5 Ultra chip. Apple says M5 Max offers 3.9 times faster AI performance than the previous generation, with an 18-core CPU and up to a 40-core GPU. The company claims the new Neural Accelerators are now 50% faster than the last Mac Studio, and you can configure it with up to 128GB of RAM.

Apple says M5 Ultra offers 4.3 times the "peak AI compute performance of M3 Ultra." If you're coming from M1 Ultra, Apple says you can expect up to 9.8 times more performance. You can configure a Mac Studio with M5 Ultra with a CPU with up to 36 cores, and a GPU with up to 80 cores, which Apple says is its most powerful graphics processor ever. At launch, you can configure the M5 Ultra with up to 256GB of RAM, but Apple says you'll soon be able to upgrade to 512GB.

The Studio has a full array of I/O components, including four Thunderbolt 5 ports, Ethernet, two USB-A ports, HDMI, and a headphone jack. You can connect it with up to eight displays, or up to four Studio Display XDRs.

You can pre-order Mac Studios today, starting at $2,499 for the M5 Max model, or $5,499 for the M5 Ultra model. (Though you can certainly pay a lot more if you upgrade the components.) The M5 Max price is technically unchanged, but it is the price Apple increased the Studio line to back in June. The M5 Ultra is now $200 more than it was before.

Apple quietly upgraded other products today, too

While Apple's official announcements were focused on its two new Mac models and M-series chips, it quietly updated some other products, as well. If you go to buy a new Magic Keyboard from Apple today, you'll notice some of the keys are different, replacing the text with glyphs (e.g., an arrow icon instead of "caps lock" text). While the keyboards are functionally the same, these small updates bring the design in line with Apple's latest laptops.

Apple's much-memed "Polishing Cloth" is also changed today, but for the better. While the product itself is the same, it now costs $9, rather than $19. It feels a bit more reasonable to drop it in your cart now, even if it is just a cloth with the Apple logo embossed in the corner.