The M5 MacBook Pro is official, but wait…isn’t something missing? Of course, the M5 MacBook Air always comes later, and as reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, that is set for Spring 2026. But that's not what I'm talking about. What about M5 Pro and M5 Max Pros?
Well, you can expect these to come early next year too, and there are even rumblings of new Mac Studios and Mac minis coming too. Let’s break it down.
M5 MacBook Air
This is the least surprising of Gurman’s report, because it’s a predictable routine from Apple. First comes the Pro in the fall, then comes the Air next spring. Just like the M5 Pro, we’re not expecting any sort of significant overhaul of the design or display technology (that could come in 2027 with a rumored update to the LCD display).
But this will be a spec bump to the M5, which, given the new architectural changes to the GPU cores with neural accelerators and the higher memory bandwidth, looks set to be an ultraportable monster. I look forward to this launching (probably) in March 2026.
The missing MacBook Pros
Like I said, this was the most intriguing part of Apple’s announcements this week — the Cupertino crew are usually quick off the bat with bringing standard, Pro and Max chips to market. But this time, we just got the base one.
The reasons behind this delay go into the technical details of this chip. Taking a page out of Intel Panther Lake’s playbook, the M5 Pro and M5 Max may be being redesigned to have separate CPU and GPU blocks — a system of chips rather than a system on a chip. This would bring another uplift in performance, power efficiency and heat management, which are critical for power users.
With that in mind, given these are also set for early 2026 too (according to Gurman), it wouldn’t surprise me if these come alongside the Air as part of a Spring Mac event.
Moving to desktops
I believe these won’t be the only new Macs coming at this time. Yes, Gurman has confirmed Apple is developing new versions of the Mac Studio and Mac Mini with M5 Pro and/or M5 Max chips too. Alongside this, it’s teased that there will be two new external displays in the works — with one being the next-generation Studio Display.
But he’s been careful to say there’s no word on when these will come out. Well, if I was to put my betting hat on, chances are Apple will want to get all of its upgrades out in early 2026 — that way the team doesn’t hinder the hype around M6 models later in the year.
So in short, it’s been a good week for the base model users (and that’s a lot of you), but for pro users and those currently sitting in front of a creative battlestation, your time will come next spring. That’s my bet anyway!
Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
More from Tom's Guide
- M5 MacBook Pro vs M4: 3 big upgrades you need to know about
- You really should wait for the M6 MacBook Pro — here's 3 reasons why M5 is not the upgrade you want
- Apple Vision Pro with M5 chip unveiled — here's all the upgrades (and what's missing)
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
