Because the M6 Pro and Max were cancelled. So their alternatives were to either sandbag the base MacBook Pro by leaving it on the M5, which wouldn't make much sense if M6 exists, or wait to release these new Pros until the M7 line is available. Since both of those seemed like a bad plan, they went with this one.

I'm all for product line-up simplicity. But the story goes that M6 generation isn't getting Pro/Max/Ultra chips, so only lower-end MBP and consumer SKUs get M6 generation. Seems odd for a redesigned MBP to not get fresher chips. Presumably the M7 generation will get the full chip lineups next year on the second-gen 2 nm process.

Because they decided to skip it and move forward to the M7 jumping two generations ahead with their pro computers, why not? Seems reasonable in light of their competition wasting billions of dollars on AI models and data centers.

I hope they find time to address the memory problem. Like they addressed their processor problem and their modem problem.

The Apple Silicon design group can certainly do something about it. And Apple certainly has the money after all, they didn’t squander it on AI models.