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Apple officially entered its M5 era on Wednesday. The company not only announced the new M5 chip, placing a major emphasis on its AI processing power, but also the first batch of new devices that will ship alongside it. If you’re interested in buying an Apple device with the company’s latest and greatest hardware, it’s all just around the corner.
That said, the list of product announcements was limited. While Apple revealed M5 versions of the iPad Pro and Vision Pro will be available starting on Oct. 22, it only showed off one M5 Mac: the 14-inch MacBook Pro. The 13- and 15-inch MacBook Airs are still stuck on M4 for now, as are the Pro and Max versions of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros. But a few days later, we know when that might change.
More M5 Macs are on the horizon
If you’re holding out on buying one of the current M4 laptops in the hope that Apple will soon upgrade them with M5 chips, you’re going to be waiting a little while longer. As Bloomberg’s typically reliabe Mark Gurman reports, Apple doesn’t plan to refresh its MacBook Air line until next spring. That goes for a host of other Mac products as well, including M5 versions of the Mac Studio and Mac mini, in addition to new Mac monitors.
It’s a similar story for the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros. While Gurman doesn’t specify whether these laptops are also coming in the spring, he does report Apple is planning on refreshing the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros with the new chips in “early 2026.”
Gurman says the new MacBook Pros will recycle Apple’s current design, and I’d imagine the same will hold true for the M5 MacBook Airs. The M5 14-inch MacBook Pro looks identical to its M4 counterpart, after all, with the only notable changes (other than the M5 chip) being a boosted 24 hour battery life and faster SSD.
If you’re currently holding out on buying a new MacBook, I don’t think there’s much reason to wait for the M5, unless you just really want the newest hardware Apple has to offer. The current M4 machines are excellent, and, in the case of the MacBook Air, can be bought for a very reasonable price—especially when they go on sale. During October Prime Day, stores offered the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air for only $799, which is an excellent value.
Apple is also working on a touchscreen MacBook Pro
In this same report, Gurman discusses Apple’s current plans for a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen, which would be a dramatic refresh—no Mac has ever shipped with a touchscreen, unless you count the controversial Touch Bar (RIP), which only added a touch-based strip to the top of the keyboard.
According to Gurman, these touchscreens will be OLED, which the company already uses in its iPad Pros and iPhones. You’ll still have the standard keyboard and trackpad, so you could ignore the touchscreen entirely, though Apple is considering replacing Touch ID with Face ID, again mirroring its iPads and iPhones. To that point, the “notch” (the large camera cutout at the top of the screen) may be replaced by a smaller hole-punch design, reminiscent of the iPhone’s Dynamic Island.
Alongside the touchscreen, Apple may update the design of these MacBook Pros to be thinner and lighter, and they may run on the M6 chip, rather than a version of the M5. They may also include a new hinge and lid design to compensate for the force of touching the display. Remember, this would be a new design challenge for the MacBook line, which has never had to deal with users purposely touching the display before.
Gurman says the touchscreen MacBook Pro won’t debut until late 2026 or even early 2027. When it does arrive, it will likely come with an increased price tag of at least “a few hundreds dollars more than current versions.” Right now, the M4 Pro MacBook Pros start at $1,999 for the 14-inch model, and $2,499 for the 16-inch model. Apple would be upgrading the hardware here considerably, so the increased price tag isn’t without merit. But if you’re looking for the best value Mac possible, it’s challenging to beat the current M4 MacBook Air—especially when it’s on sale.
