We May Not Get an M5 MacBook Pro This Year After All
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In October 2021, Apple ushered in the “Pro” era of Apple Silicon with the debut of a newly redesigned 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro lineup featuring more powerful M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. While the follow-up M2 Pro/Max models slipped into January 2023, that turned out to be the exception to a seemingly consistent fall release cycle.
The M2 Pro and M2 Max MacBooks turned out to have the shortest life of any of Apple’s new MacBooks, finding themselves phased out only ten months after their release when Apple unveiled a full lineup of M3 MacBook Pro models at an unusually whimsical October “Scary Fast” event held on October 30, 2023.
That event wasn’t just notable for its darker setting and evening timing. Apple also introduced the Space Black finish for its newest MacBooks and welcomed the awkward stepbrother of the MacBook Pro family into the lineup as a full sibling, phasing out the legacy 13-inch MacBook Pro design that had been used for the M1 and M2 versions in favor of the 14-inch design of the M Pro-series models.
When Apple announced its M4 MacBook Pro lineup on October 30, 2024 — a year to the day after unveiling their predecessors, it seemed the company had settled on a pretty fixed release schedule, especially when the M3 and M4 MacBook Air models similarly arrived during the first week of March in 2023 and 2024. As a bonus, Apple’s M-series chip debuts align nicely with the calendar year.
The conventional wisdom was that Apple planned to repeat this with this year’s M5 MacBook Pro lineup, which is expected to be a similarly minor refresh to what we’ve seen over the past few years, featuring new chips and some minor spec bumps in what has now become Apple’s standard design. An OLED MacBook Pro is still on the roadmap, but nobody expects that to show up until late 2026, at the earliest.
However, if the latest rumors are accurate, it seems that Apple may be throwing us another curveball. In an anticipated roadmap of Apple’s 2026 releases provided by his usual sources, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reveals that Apple could plan on delaying the M5 MacBook Pro until 2026.
Oddly, Apple’s rationale for this doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the readiness of the new MacBooks. Instead, Gurman suggests it’s about timing the releases to level out its revenue stream.
“The new products are part of a push to get back to more consistent revenue growth following this fall’s iPhone launch,” Gurman says, suggesting that Apple hasn’t properly leveled off from the “pandemic-fueled sales surge” of a few years ago.
This may also be driven by Apple’s plan to once again debut its latest M5 silicon on the iPad Pro, rather than the MacBook, as it did last year. An M5 iPad Pro is still on the roadmap for October, and Apple may want to give it some time to bask in its M5 glory before the M5-powered MacBooks show up to steal the show.
There’s no word on when the M5 MacBook Pro lineup may arrive. Apple could repeat what it did in 2023 and release them in January, but Gurman also says the “timing remains fluid,” so it’s possible Apple hasn’t made up its mind yet whether it’s even going to delay their release, much less for how long.
The timing for Apple’s next MacBook Pro might also play into this. The M5 MacBook Pro is widely expected to be the last of its kind before Apple transitions to an OLED display, which will feature a new design that may follow in the footsteps of the iPad Pro in terms of thinness. The new screen technology and more ambitious design could result in the M6 MacBook Pro lineup being slated for 2027.
[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.]
