Happy Apple week to all who celebrate it! And no, I’m not talking about iPhone week…or WWDC (Apple has a lot of weeks). It’s the fall, and we’re anticipating the Cupertino crew to pack the M5 chip into three products — chief among them will be an updated M5 MacBook Pro.
However, I’m here to ask you to do a favor for me: wait. From one friend to another, this is probably the final iteration of this current design (which has been around since 2021), and a significant overhaul seems set for the M6 model.
Now look, I get it. We tell you to forget about a whole lot of products in a bunch of headlines, and you rightly roast us for them. Like, you could always forget the iPhone 17 Pro, because the iPhone 20 Pro would be way better, right!?
But trust me — an extra 12 months with that current MacBook Pro you have will be worth the wait for what Apple is rumored to be cooking for what will be an actual overhaul compared to the spec bump we may be seeing this week in the M5 upgrade.
I know you may have speeds and feeds envy looking at the rumored M5 benchmarks, but the small, real-world performance increases will pale in comparison to the buyer’s remorse you’ll feel when next October rolls around. Here are three reasons why you should wait.
An actual redesign
The utilitarian frame of the current 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro has served us well, but it’s four years old by this point. It’s time to freshen things up a little, and 2026 seems to be the time we’ll be getting an overhaul.
Not much is known, but according to Bloomberg, Apple will be bringing a new, thinner design to the table. This could bring it closer to MacBook Air levels of thinness, while keeping that pro power on the table.
As a matter of fact, this is the redesign that Apple was reportedly keen to introduce this year, but this has been delayed because of the next big upgrade that had to be put on ice for a little while longer.
OLED touchscreen is coming
Ever since seeing the tandem OLED display from the M4 iPad Pro, I’ve been crying out for Apple to pop this panel into the MacBook Pro. Finally, it’s looking like it may happen, as rumors are that it is happening on the 2026 Pro models.
Even better than that? The notch could finally be going in favor of a Dynamic Island, and for that to work (yes, you guessed it), analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is hinting that touchscreen tech is finally coming to Apple laptops.
This could be a huge moment for the MacBook Pro (and potentially put the iPad in an even more confusing position in Apple’s lineup). But quick disclaimer on this! There are also conflicting rumors that the OLED screen may not come to the 14-inch MacBook Pro.
According to unique identifiers spotted by Vadim Yuryev on X, the sleeker redesign and the better screen may be limited to the 16-inch model. I’m a little skeptical of this myself — maybe it’s just the base Pro that sticks to mini-LED, but we’ll see.
2 nanometer process is just around the corner
M3, M4 and M5 have all been manufactured on TSMC’s 3-nanometer process, and with every generation, Apple has been able to squeeze out more potential from each of those insanely tiny transistors.
But next year will be the real generational leap, as M6 looks set to be the first chip to move on over to the 2-nanometer process — allowing for 15% higher chip density. That means more transistors in a smaller amount of space, which would lead to a jump in performance and power efficiency.
This will mean rather than seeing an iterative jump, this could lead to drastically improved performance potential here, which, when combined with a fresh design and an OLED panel, means power users are in for a treat.
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