Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) AI narrative takes another step forward: M6 new products max out performance, Apple Intelligence plans to charge in the future, Ives says the market has not yet fully priced it in

Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) on Tuesday released its latest 14-inch MacBook Pro and an all-new iMac, and Yorkville analyst Dan Ives gave a positive assessment, maintaining his "Outperform" rating and US$400 price target on the stock. "The chip is the core highlight," Ives said in a note to investors. "The M6 upgrade moves to a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, each with two more cores than the M5, with a neural accelerator in every GPU core, plus a dual 16-core Neural Engine, which Apple Inc. says runs up to 1.9x faster than the M5. But what we're really focused on is the AI-related data: on-device large language model prompt processing is up to 25% faster than the M5, time to first token is up to 13x faster than M1 models, memory is configurable up to 32GB with 170GB/s of bandwidth, and battery life runs up to 24 hours, the longest ever in Apple Inc.'s Mac lineup." Ives believes Apple Inc. is planning to begin monetizing on-device AI use in the near future. "First, Apple Inc. states in a footnote that server-side Apple Intelligence features (including Siri AI) are subject to daily usage limits and that 'extended access to such features will be available for purchase in the future,'" Ives noted. "This is the clearest statement to date that Apple Inc. intends to monetize AI directly through its services business rather than relying solely on hardware upgrades, an argument the market has been slow to fully appreciate."