It finally happened. At its “Pro and tell” event in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Apple announced the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display, the first Mac you can touch. “Yes, for the very first time, we are bringing touch to the Mac,” CEO John Ternus told media and analysts at the event, per CNBC.
Pre-orders opened yesterday, and the machines arrive in customers’ hands and stores on Friday, November 6. The catch is the price.
What it costs
According to Apple’s press release:
- 14-inch, M5 Pro: from $2,899
- 16-inch, M5 Pro: from $3,399
- 14-inch, M5 Max: from $4,499
- 16-inch, M5 Max: from $4,799
That’s before any memory or storage upgrades. For comparison, the M6 14-inch MacBook Pro Apple announced on Tuesday holds at $1,999, so touch and OLED add about $900 to the entry price. Note too that the touch models use M5 Pro and M5 Max, not the newer M6, as The Verge points out.
How touch works
Apple built the touch sensor into the display panel itself rather than layering it on top, which it says cuts latency. You can swipe to scroll, pinch to zoom, drag slides between presentations, double-tap a window to fill the screen, or flick it to tile. A redesigned hinge is meant to keep the screen steady when you poke it.
It’s still a regular laptop running macOS 27, not a 2-in-1. Ars Technica notes that all of Apple’s demo footage showed people reaching up to the screen in a normal laptop position. Many existing apps work with touch right away because macOS translates taps into clicks, and Apple says Microsoft Office, Zoom, Notion, Canva, Lightroom, DaVinci Resolve and Blender are among the third-party apps adding proper touch support later this year.
The rest of the spec sheet
- PROLED XDR display: a tandem OLED panel with up to 2,000 nits peak brightness for both HDR and SDR, a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 120Hz ProMotion, and P3 plus Adobe RGB color. The 16-inch screen grows to 16.3 inches, and the 14-inch is 14.2 inches.
- Dynamic Island on the Mac: it holds Spotlight, Live Activities and Siri AI. Spotlight only moves there if Siri AI is enabled.
- Lighter and thinner: the 14-inch weighs 3 pounds (half a pound less) and the 16-inch weighs 4 pounds (0.7 pounds less).
- Battery and storage: Apple claims up to 24 hours of battery life, up to 128GB of unified memory and up to 16TB of storage.
- Ports: three Thunderbolt 5, HDMI, SDXC, MagSafe and a headphone jack.
- The glowing Apple logo on the lid is back, The Verge reports.
Who should buy it
This is a pro machine priced like one. If you’re a photographer, colorist or video editor, the OLED panel and Adobe RGB support are the real reason to buy, and touch is a bonus. If you just want a fast MacBook Pro, the $1,999 M6 model is the better value and has a newer chip.
The bigger question is whether touch will matter. CNBC points out that touchscreens haven’t historically sold laptops, so the outcome depends on how quickly developers build for it. Apple reversing a position it held for decades is a big deal either way. The early reviews should show whether the reversal was worth the wait.
Sources: Apple Newsroom (Oct. 28), CNBC (Oct. 28), The Verge (Oct. 28), Ars Technica (Oct. 28), 9to5Mac (Oct. 28).
Reporting reference: Apple Newsroom ↗