Top Stories: Apple's 'Surprise and Shine' Event, Plus New Mac mini and Mac Studio

This week marked a significant turning point for Apple, as the company unveiled several new hardware products alongside its highly anticipated iPhone event. The major announcements included the next-generation Mac mini and Mac Studio, both powered by cutting-edge M6 and M5 Max/ Ultra chips, as well as the introduction of a new Polishing Cloth for Apple's Magic Keyboards and an update to the Apple TV streaming service.

Apple announced that it would hold its annual iPhone event on September 9, at its Cupertino campus, with the event tagline "Surprise and Shine." The event is expected to reveal the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the foldable iPhone, rumored to be called the iPhone Ultra. However, Apple has decided to delay the more affordable iPhone 18 for a spring 2027 launch.

The new Mac mini boasts an all-new M6 chip with a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, offering up to 40% faster CPU performance, 4× faster AI processing, 2× faster graphics, and up to 2× faster storage speeds compared to its predecessor. In contrast, the Mac Studio comes equipped with either the M5 Max or M5 Ultra chip, featuring a PCIe Gen 6 next-generation SSD architecture, Thunderbolt 5 ports, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 6 capabilities.

The M5 Ultra chip boasts up to 36 cores, including 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, delivering up to 1.25x higher single-threaded and 1.3x higher multithreaded performance compared to the M3 Ultra in the previous generation Mac Studio.