Apple’s January Surprise: An M5 Max MacBook Pro May Be Days Away
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Last fall, Apple made the unusual move of debuting only part of its new M5-powered MacBook Pro family. The 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro arrived alongside a new M5 iPad Pro and even an M5 Vision Pro, but the more powerful M5 Pro and M5 Max versions were nowhere in sight.
The move wasn’t entirely surprising, as it followed reliable reports from folks like Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman that Apple had been planning on delaying the higher-end models into 2026, but it still broke with what had seemed to be a convention of unveiling the entire family together.
Granted, Apple only started doing this in 2023, so two years doesn’t necessarily set a trend. However, that was also the same year it welcomed the lower-end MacBook Pro into the family. The first two generations of base M-series MacBook Pro models had retained the 13-inch design from the Intel era, even after Apple completely redesigned the M1 Pro and M1 Max models in late 2021, adopting mini-LED displays and bringing back the hardware function keys and many of the ports needed by the professional market.
In 2023, the M3 MacBook Pro finally got that new design, launching at Apple’s whimsical “Scary Fast” event alongside the flagship M3 Pro and M3 Max versions and a new M3-powered 24-inch iMac. Apple repeated this in 2024 with the M4 series of chips, so many expected the M5 lineup would follow suit.
However, over the summer analysts began questioning whether the M5 Macs would arrive at all in 2025, with Gurman suggesting that Apple may have been looking to balance out its product launches to level out its revenue stream throughout the year. By the time the fall rolled around, it became clear that the M5 MacBook Pro was on track, but the M5 Pro and M5 Max variants would probably be delayed. Insiders suggested this had more to do with the more powerful chips not being ready than it did with any desire on Apple’s part to hold back their release.
That’s partly because Apple has reportedly moved to a new modular design for the higher-end M5 chips that places the CPU and GPU on separate blocks. This would allow for more flexible “mix-and-match” configurations than Apple has offered in the past, but the design shift has resulted in these chips taking a bit longer to come off the fabrication lines.
Enter 2026…
Although the reports made it pretty clear that these higher-end MacBook Pro models would be delayed into early 2026, nobody seemed to have any inside knowledge on when they’d show up. The first quarter seemed the most logical, especially with rumors that a new generation of redesigned M6-powered models could land later this year, but whether that would be January or March was anybody’s guess.
Still, there’s plenty of reason to believe we’ll see them sooner rather than later. For one thing, Apple is likely to release its M5 MacBook Air in March, and it would seem odd for the M5 Pro and M5 Max models to show up at the same time. More significantly, the only other time the more powerful versions of the Apple silicon MacBook Pro haven’t been released in October was the M2 Pro and M2 Max versions, which quietly debuted via a press release in January 2023. That was in the era when the 13-inch MacBook Pro still felt like the weird cousin in the family, and the M2 version of that had debuted alongside the similarly-specced MacBook Air models during Apple’s June 2022 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
Then there’s the timing of Apple’s Creator Studio launch, which is set for January 28, followed by Apple’s Q1 2026 earnings call on January 29. As a suite of tools designed for professionals, it would be quite appropriate for the new M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models to arrive in time to take advantage of that, and while Apple isn’t nixing one-time purchases for its pro apps, it could still use that announcement to help promote its new subscription — and vice-versa — especially since it’s offering three months free for anyone who buys a new Mac, encouraging even folks who already own Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro to at least take a look at Creator Studio to see what it has to offer.
The earnings call would then be the cherry on top, giving Tim Cook the opportunity for a shout out to investors about how they’ve just introduced groundbreaking new technology, since the new models are likely to be announced via a press release rather than a formal Apple event. There have also been some murmurings that Apple could use the opportunity to unveil a 16-inch MacBook Pro with the base M5 chip. While that move would make the larger screen much more affordable, the reports we’ve seen remain firmly in the realm of wishful thinking for now, so take them with a healthy grain of salt. Most reliable supply chain insiders say the focus remains squarely on the Pro and Max silicon.
Of course, this is all just educated speculation, but to put it in context, the M2 Pro and M2 Max MacBook Pro models were announced on January 17, 2023 and went on sale on January 24, so there’s precedent, and the timing seems even more apt this year.
After all, with the Creator Studio bringing AI-powered features like Transcript Search and Beat Detection to the Mac on January 28, the stage is perfectly set. Launching the most powerful laptops in Apple’s history on the same day would give Apple a strong forward-looking boost for its January 29 earnings call.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
