Apple announces M6 MacBook Pro as Engadget traces 20 years of laptop design

Apple announced a new 14-inch MacBook Pro with its M6 chip on October 27, 2026, in Cupertino, California, promising faster graphics and AI workloads for laptop users. An Engadget retrospective published the same day examines how earlier MacBooks influenced competing laptop designs.

The M6 has a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, according to Apple. The company claims up to 30% faster graphics and 25% faster AI workloads than M5, along with up to 24 hours of battery life. Those figures are Apple’s performance and endurance claims.

How earlier MacBooks changed laptop design

Apple’s portable-computer history began before the MacBook name. Engadget traces it from the Macintosh Portable through the PowerBook line to the colorful iBook G3 in 1999. The first MacBook Pro arrived in 2006, according to the retrospective.

The outlet identifies the aluminum unibody cases on the 2008 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air as a major design shift. Carved from a single block of metal, the cases were stronger and lighter than mainstream laptop enclosures of the time, Engadget argues. It says PC makers struggled for years to replicate them.

Engadget also credits the redesigned MacBook Air models introduced in late 2010 with establishing a wedge shape that made room for larger batteries and faster solid-state storage. It says ASUS and Acer drew on the design for ultraportable laptops during the following decade.

The 2012 MacBook Pro brought Apple’s Retina Display concept to its laptops, contributing to a wider move toward higher-resolution screens, in Engadget’s assessment. Its account also describes the 2016 redesign, which introduced the Touch Bar and removed legacy ports, leaving four USB-C ports and a headphone connection.

Engadget identifies the M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro as another turning point, citing their speed, battery gains and ability to run emulated apps. It argues that Apple’s shift to its own chips and revised operating system demonstrated a more effective approach to Arm-based laptops than earlier Windows machines. The newly announced M6 model extends Apple’s use of its own chips in the MacBook Pro.