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Apple's touchscreen MacBook Pro puts current M5 chips in a lighter OLED body
Apple's first touchscreen, tandem-OLED MacBook Pro is due by the end of November with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. For fleet buyers, the decision depends on who carries the laptop every day and whose work can wait for the next chip generation.
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What happened
- Apple has reportedly skipped the higher-end chips in the M6 family so it can bring the M7 launch forward.
- Gurman says the redesigned machines will be significantly lighter than current models, but he did not say how much weight comes off.
- Earlier reports described a thinner machine with a Dynamic Island, though no image of the new design has surfaced yet.
Compiled by The Product DeskSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- decision A refresh justified by slow builds or renders gets no newer chip from this redesign, so the case for buying it has to rest on weight and the screen.
- constraint Buyers who planned to wait for an M6 Pro or M6 Max laptop will not get that product, so their choice is M5 in the new case now or M7 later.
- exposure Support desks would take on Apple's first touchscreen Mac and a new macOS point release in the same window, with no fleet history for either.
According to 9to5mac, the 16-inch MacBook Pro weighs as much as 4.8 pounds, against 3.3 pounds for the 15-inch MacBook Air [7]. The difference is 1.5 pounds [1], and the employee who picked the 16-inch for its chip carries it on every trip out of the office.
This is the first touchscreen MacBook [2], so the fleet has no usage data to build a touch-based refresh plan on. The thing a user would notice on day one is the weight [5]. According to the Power On passage that 9to5mac quotes, Apple miniaturized parts and rearranged components inside the machine "to make the computer much easier to carry" [6].
If the refresh is about performance, the chip is the same. Gurman reports the new machines should ship with the current M5 Pro and M5 Max [3]. A team replacing laptops because builds or renders are slow would get the same chip generation in a new case. Apple has also reportedly dropped the higher-end M6 parts to bring M7 forward [4]. For Pro buyers, that makes M7 the next chip step after M5, with no M6 Pro or M6 Max laptop in between [2]. The report did not include a launch date for M7 [4].
Day one also brings software to approve. The touch and Dynamic Island support Gurman describes arrives in macOS Golden Gate alongside macOS 27.2 [9]. An IT team rolling out the first tandem OLED MacBook [2] before the end of November [1] would be signing off on a new input method and an OS point release at the same time.
Sort the fleet on two lines: whether a person carries the laptop most working days, and whether their work is held back by the chip. The clear buyers are people who carry the laptop and whose work does not depend on chip speed. For them the lighter case is the upgrade, and the cost is running Apple's first touch software. Desk users with chip-heavy work should wait for M7 and accept an open-ended wait. Where both lines are true, run a pilot: a few redesigned machines now, with the bulk order held until M7 has a date. Anyone who fits neither can skip this cycle.
What to watch
- The published weight of the redesigned 16-inch model, measured against today's 4.8 pounds.
- Any date for M7 MacBook Pro machines. For chip-bound desk users, that date would end the wait.
- How macOS 27.2 handles touch and the Dynamic Island when it ships with the hardware.