I wasn’t invited to Apple’s “Pro and Tell” event, so I did what most of us do: I watched everyone who was. Posts, clips, reactions. The event was in Los Angeles on October 28, and the headline was the first Mac with a touchscreen. Everything below comes from people Apple invited, so keep that in mind.
Here’s My Take
I never expected a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen. It honestly looks smooth and the zoom in and out feature actually looks effortless, and it looks natural, like it was always supposed to be there. The touchscreen is called the PROLED XDR Mac. It has a 120Hz refresh rate and up to 2,000 nits brightness. Available in the 14-inch and 16-inch models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. It does feature the Dynamic Island, optional nano-texture glass and up to 24 hours of battery life. It also has a 16TB configuration but that does come with a super heavy price tag of a minimum of $11,499 with only 32gb of memory. I will stick to my portable hardware with just as much space and so much cheaper. The touchscreen is impressive but that’s about it. Simply putting a mobile interface on a laptop isn’t necessarily a solution. However the biggest talk is the glowing Apple Logo, which I did miss.
My 2012 MacBook Pro was my first Apple product I owned. I got it for college, when I was studying design, and I was excited. The logo lit up when I opened the lid, and I remember that more than I’d expect to.
I had it for almost six years. It overheated one day and never came back on. It just quit. Seeing it return feels a little like seeing an old friend show up looking better than you remember.
The Other Releases
The touchscreen MacBook Pro wasn’t the only thing Apple announced that week.
- iPad mini (OLED): An 8.5-inch OLED Super Retina XRD display with an optional nano-texture glass finish to reduce glare and also has the A20 Pro chip, starting at $699. It has a 5.4mm body and an IP67 rating, but the screen is still 60Hz.
- MacBook Pro 14-inch (M6): It gets a new M6 chip with 30% faster graphics, Wi-Fi 7 and up to 24-hour battery life. It starts at $1,999.
- iMac (M6): It gets a powerful upgrade with it being faster than the M4. It also has Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. It does keep its 4.5k Retina display. It will start at $1,499.
- Apple Creative Studio gets smarter with their tools. It brings built-in MotionVEX content to Final Cut Pro, new video assets in the Content Hub, expanded music creation tools in Logic Pro, and smarter Al-powered teatures across Logic Pro, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers.
All three arrive November 6, with pre-orders opening October 28. The touchscreen MacBook Pro is a separate, higher tier.
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