Apple Is About to Release a Touchscreen MacBook Pro (Plus Four More Devices)
Its first touchscreen MacBook Pros are nearly here.
Apple has had a busy fall. Head to the company's website, and you'll immediately be greeted by a sea of new products: the foldable iPhone Duo; the iPhone 18 Pro; HomePod mini 2; Apple Watch Series 12; the list goes on. It seems, under new Apple CEO Jon Ternus, the company is ready for a refresh of just about every product it sells. To that point, the company seems far from finished. Just this week, Apple is planning to release five brand new products, each launching on Friday. While four of these are Macs, Apple does have a new iPad in the works, as well. Here's everything new Apple is releasing this week.
OLED iPad mini
Finally. For the first time, the iPad mini is about to ship with an OLED display. Apple's smallest tablet has always come with a standard screen. Despite its price tag, the iPad mini has never come with an OLED display, or even a mini-LED screen, until now. With this new model, there is no backlight. As such, each individual pixel on the iPad's display will be able to shut itself off when displaying dark content. That will benefit the content you watch on this device, as well as the overall contrast of the screen.
Beyond the new OLED panel, the new iPad mini is thinner and lighter than the previous model. It also comes with Apple's newest A20 Pro chip, the same processor the company put in its iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo smartphones. The new device starts at $699 for 128GB of storage, though there are various upgrades, including nano-texture glass (add $100) and cellular (add $150).
M6 iMac
Good news: There's a new iMac. Bad news: Not much is different here from the previous model. The biggest change here is the new M6 chip, which Apple says is up to five times faster than the iMac with M4 and up to 12 times faster than the iMac with M1. With that M6 chip, the iMac now supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. Other than that, this is the same iMac you may already know: It comes with a 24-inch LED display (no OLED, unfortunately), two or four USB-C ports (depending on the configuration), and a built-in 12MP webcam. If you're looking for a new all-in-one computer, or you've been considering upgrading your older iMac, this is likely a great choice. But if you already have an M-series iMac, it's not such an obvious upgrade. (My M1 iMac may be up to 12 times slower, but it's still plenty fast for me.) Apple didn't change the price here: The M6 iMac still starts at $1,499 for two ports, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage.
M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch)
Similarly, Apple's newest 14-inch MacBook Pro isn't much different from the previous model—save for the new processor. This model also comes with Apple's M6 chip, which Apple says is up to 13 times faster for AI processing than the M1 MacBook Pro. (Apple seems keen on convincing stubborn M1 users to upgrade this cycle.) Now, the company is offering this model of MacBook Pro in three chipsets, depending on use case: M6 for "entry-level" pro work; M5 Pro for mid-tier pro work; and M5 Max for the most demanding situations.
But, like the M6 iMac, this is the same MacBook Pro Apple sold before. It has a 14-inch mini-LED display with a refresh rate up to 120Hz. It comes with three Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, an HDMI port, and an SDXC card slot. It, too, has a 12MP webcam for video calls. Apple's newest MacBook Pro starts at $1,999, but you can quickly ramp up that price tag with screen, chip, memory, or storage upgrades.
Touchscreen MacBook Pro (14- and 16-inch)
Apple's most exciting product launch this week is undoubtedly the new touchscreen MacBook Pros. Unlike the M6 MacBook Pro, which only comes in the 14-inch variant, Apple's first touchscreen laptop comes in both 14- and 16-inch options. Apple says this touchscreen lets you scroll, zoom, or draw on the display. That works with basic functions, like web browsing or selecting files, but also with specific workflows, like playing virtual instruments in Logic Pro, or manipulating an object in a 3D modeling app. Like the iPad mini, this laptop comes with an OLED display (Apple calls it PROLED XDR), with up to 1,000 nits of typical brightness and 2,000 nits of HDR brightness. It also brings back the backlit Apple logo, something I've missed on my last two MacBooks.
This MacBook Pro also comes with the iPhone's Dynamic Island for the first time. This replaces the "notch" that other MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs currently ship with. It can function as a basic webcam, but also as a dedicated zone for Spotlight, Live Activities, and Siri AI. This machine comes in either M5 Pro or M5 Max variants—no M6 for this model—as Apple seems to be positioning it exclusively for the most taxing situations (particularly AI). The company says the new MacBook Pro has up to 13 more hours of battery life than Intel-based MacBook Pros, and can fast charge up to 50% in 30 minutes. It's essentially a supercharged version of the existing MacBook Pro.
As such, this is Apple's most expensive laptop. The 14-inch M5 Pro version starts at $2,899, while the 16-inch starts at $3,399. However, you can configure these machines to have outrageous price tags. The maxed-out 16-inch MacBook Pro is $14,549, roughly half of which is the 16TB of RAM.