Apple is reportedly working on one of the biggest changes in MacBook history with its first-ever touchscreen MacBook Pro, expected to launch between late 2026 and early 2027. One of the prominent surprises is the processor that will power these redesigned MacBooks. Instead of launching them with the next-generation M6 Pro and M6 Max chips, Apple is now expected to use the existing M5 Pro and M5 Max processors, reports Bloomberg.
The move is unusual because Apple has traditionally introduced major MacBook redesigns along with its latest Apple Silicon chips. The reported plan suggests that the tech titan wants to bring the new hardware design to market sooner while using processors that are already powerful enough for professional users and the company’s growing AI features.
The report also points to a significant change in Apple’s chip roadmap. The company is now expected to skip the M6 Pro and M6 Max processors completely. While a standard M6 chip is still likely to arrive for entry-level Macs like the MacBook Air, the company is reportedly moving its focus directly to the M7 generation for high-end Macs. If this happens, it would be the first time since Apple introduced its own silicon in 2020 that an M-series generation does not include Pro and Max variants. As a result, professional MacBook Pro models would continue using the M5 Pro and M5 Max until the M7 chips are ready.
The reason behind this change appears to be Apple’s growing focus on AI. The M7 processors are expected to deliver much stronger AI performance with a faster Neural Engine, better GPU acceleration for AI tasks, higher unified memory bandwidth and improved support for large on-device AI models.
Even though the redesigned MacBook may not use brand-new processors, the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips already offer major improvements for professional users. Apple claims that these chips feature a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerators built into every GPU core, making AI and machine learning tasks much faster. They also support up to 128GB of unified memory, offer higher memory bandwidth, Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, SSD speeds of up to 14.5 GB/s and battery life of up to 24 hours. Apple has positioned the M5 family as ideal for AI development, software programming, video editing, 3D rendering, scientific computing and other demanding professional workloads.
Along with adding touch support to macOS for the first time, Apple is expected to introduce OLED displays in place of the current mini-LED panels, offering deeper blacks, better contrast, improved power efficiency and a thinner display. The redesigned laptops are likely to be available in both 14-inch and 16-inch sizes, and the report also suggest the firm could replace the current display notch with a Dynamic Island-style cutout.
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Ashutosh is a Senior Writer at The Tech Portal, largely reporting on new tech, and intersection of technology and business. Ashutosh’s career spans across nearly a decade of technology writing across multiple platforms and languages.
