MacBook Pro tipped for M5 upgrade ahead of iPad Pro — what we know

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Report claims that after the M4 MacBook Air arrives, it’s full speed ahead for the M5 rollout.

MacBook Pro 2023
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

In 2024, the iPad Pro was the first device to debut Apple’s brand-new M4 chipset. It would be a full five months before the company’s MacBook laptops would catch up, suggesting that Apple was keen on signalling that iPads were now the main priority outside of the iPhone.

But according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, this won’t be repeated for the M5 chip. In the Post Game Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman states the transition to M5 chips will begin in the fall of 2025 in new MacBook Pro models, with the iPad Pro not getting the same treatment until the first half of 2026.

“In other words, the M4 and M5 chip transitions will see their release orders flipped, with the M5 coming to the Mac before the iPad Pro,” he writes.

This means that last year’s iPad Pro will likely be two years old by the time it’s replaced, though that’s not really a problem given the tablet’s extremely powerful internals. With the laptop-grade M4 chip powering things, it’s unlikely to be slowing down by 2026.

The transition to M5 chips will begin in the fall of 2025 in new MacBook Pro models, with the iPad Pro not getting the same treatment until the first half of 2026.

But it does give Apple’s other iPads a bit of space to catch up, and Gurman touches on these in another part of the Q&A, saying that both the entry-level iPad and M2-powered 2024 iPad Air models will be replaced in the “first half of the year”.

Both devices have been trailed before, and while the basic iPad is unlikely to challenge tablet benchmarking high scores, the Air is a different story. Gurman has previously written that he “wouldn’t be surprised if the 2025 models get bumped up to M4”, which could make it a competitively priced alternative to the 2024 iPad Pro.

Apple 13-inch iPad Air 2024 shown in hand

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Before any of these hit early adopters’ baskets, Gurman is confident that the M4 MacBook Air will already be on store shelves.

He writes that the new model has been “shipping out from factories in Asia for several weeks” indicating a release is imminent. How imminent? Gurman would “expect the laptops to go on sale by March at the latest”, which makes sense given that’s exactly a year on from when the M3 MacBook Air was released.

Plenty of product refreshes on the way, then. And with Tim Cook promising the “newest member of the family” this Wednesday — almost certain to be the iPhone SE 4 — it looks set to be an extremely busy first six months of 2025 for Apple.

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Alan Martin
Alan Martin

Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. He also handles all the Wordle coverage on Tom's Guide and has been playing the addictive NYT game for the last several years in an effort to keep his streak forever intact.

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