iPad Pros M6 Chip and the M1 in 2026 (iPad Pros - 0257)
Aug 27, 2026
Riley Hill, writer and creator behind Slatepad.org and YouTube iPad coverage. They dig into the M6 chip's architecture and GPU/AI gains. They debate two‑nanometer tradeoffs, battery and RAM hopes. They reflect on the M1 iPad Pro's five‑year strengths and software longevity. Conversations also touch on pricing, product positioning, and local AI RAM needs.
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Surprising Mac Mini Trade In Windfall
- Tim describes a surprising trade‑in: he paid $399 for a Mac mini in January and Apple offered $480 trade‑in value eight months later.
- He uses it to illustrate how trade values and pricing swings can be unexpectedly favorable.
M6 Moves To Two Nanometer Process
- Apple claims the M6 is built on a two‑nanometer process, which the hosts flagged as likely being a first in commercial chips.
- They note smaller nodes trade between efficiency gains and using that headroom for higher performance.
M6 Adds Ray Tracing And 30% AI GPU Gain
- The M6 GPU gets shader core architecture upgrades, dynamic caching, hardware‑accelerated ray tracing and a 30% AI GPU compute increase over M5.
- Tim frames this as meaningful for future iPad gaming and AI workloads, if developers adopt it.