Apple event LIVE: Touchscreen MacBook Pro expected today, iPad mini 8 and iMac M6 announced during 'Pro and Tell'
Apple's saving the best 'til last
Why I think the iPhone 18 Pro + iPad mini 8 is the better buy over iPhone Duo
Now, before you come at me, the iPhone Duo is a fundamentally great phone. But now we've got the iPad mini 8 with OLED and its confirmed $699 price tag, the economics of it don't make sense.
For the iPhone Duo, you've got to spend two racks, and with all the Crackgate stuff flying around, it's a sensitive piece of tech.
Meanwhile, if you look at the iPhone 18 Pro with a better camera system and the more durable bigger screen of iPad mini 8...
That's $100 off for the same full setup just in two devices. Of course it's your choice, but I know which way I'd go.
Don't expect an OLED MacBook Air anytime soon
All this talk of an OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro today has prompted a question amongst the team: will the MacBook Air get the OLED treatment? Short answer: not for a while.
According to reports, Apple are indeed testing one, but it's "some way off," and the annual spring time update will bring a standard LCD display to the Air again.
...isn't he being sued right now!?
If you remember back to 2025, Jon Prosser got sued by Apple after accusations of stealing company secrets were thrown around. The latest on that is the discovery phase of this case has been delayed, as Prosser just had his second child (congratulations!).
That hasn't stopped Jon from posting his own full-blown Apple keynote announcing the new products. Let's see how much he gets right about that OLED model!
How would a Dynamic Island on MacBook Pro work!?
One of the other rumors rolling around for the past few months about this upcoming MacBook Pro (and for the past couple years more broadly) is a Dynamic Island coming to the notebook.
Of course, I'm expecting this to be used in the same way as you see on the iPhones — a place to see real-time status of background apps. But is there anything else that can be done with it?
Maybe as a place to store a file real quick while you find the right window to drag it into? Siri AI? When you move something like that from a phone to a laptop, the options greatly expand!
Are you hyped for an OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro?
Obviously I can sit here and get hype about the idea of an OLED MacBook Pro, but still ponder how much I'll actually use that touchscreen.
But I want to hear from all of you!
M5 brute force vs M6 efficiency
So if the reports are true, you're about to see a confusing lineup on paper. The base model MacBook Pro sports M6, while the more expensive OLED touchscreen option will sport either M5 Pro or M5 Max.
Well, it comes down to use cases. While M6 will have the faster single-core speeds, the Pro and Max chips reign supreme in data transfer speeds and multi tasking-heavy workloads!
Chip |
Geekbench single/multi-core |
Blackmagic Disk Speed Text (MBps write/read) |
Handbrake (transcode 4K movie to 1080p mm:ss) |
|---|---|---|---|
M6 (Mac mini) |
4708 / 21405 |
6577 / 6372 |
02:46 |
M5 Pro (MacBook Pro) |
4306 / 28586 |
8989 / 12711 |
01:45 |
M5 Max (MacBook Pro) |
4338 / 29430 |
12857 / 12870 |
01:55 |
The OLED MacBook Pro won't come cheap
I spoke to David Naranjo, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research, who just ran a Bill of Materials (BOM) analysis to see what the price of the OLED MacBook Pro would actually be. Spoiler alert: it's going to get a price hike.
Price prediction is "between $2,799 and $2,999."
This sort of aligns with Bloomberg's recent reporting too.
Some of this is the tandem OLED screen inside being more pricey than the mini LED panel you see at the moment. But what we're seeing is OLED being used as a "way for PC makers to justify higher prices as memory and component costs go up," in Naranjo's own words.
Previously on 'Pro and Tell'...
A lot has happened already! So let me catch you up:
- Monday: Apple announced the iPad mini 8 with an OLED screen, A20 Pro chip (same as you find in the latest iPhones), and a nifty under-screen speaker that means there are no more speaker grilles — making it IP67 water and dust resistant. Pricing starts at $699!
- Tuesday: The Cupertino crew followed it up with the iMac M6 and base MacBook Pro M6 (with mini LED display). These are simple spec bumps to the faster, more power efficient chip. Prices start at $1,499 and $1,999 respectively.
Pre-orders on all these are starting today at 10:10am PT / 1:10pm ET / 5:10pm GMT.
Is macOS ready for touch? Here's what I'd change
So ahead of the (reportedly) imminent MacBook Pro with OLED touchscreen, I stuck the Intricuit Magic screen to my M5 MacBook Pro to see how it fares.
Now, I know that chances are Apple has already thought about this, and will launch a touch-friendly version of macOS with the Pr-OLED.
But I hope it comes with aggressive icon scaling to improve the hitbox on smaller things, actual multitouch gestures like what you see on the trackpad, and some lessons learned from the iPhone Duo snapping apps together easily in splitscreen sesions.
Good morning!
Steve Jobs’ take on touchscreen laptops https://t.co/tkXTaDjA3sOctober 25, 2026
Jason checking in here on what is probably going to be one of the biggest days in the MacBook Pro's 20-year history. It's looking likely that Apple will be releasing an OLED Pro (...Pr-OLED?) with a touchscreen — the biggest paradigm shift in the way you use a MacBook...basically ever!
And the moment this became clear to me, I immediately thought back to what Steve Jobs said on stage about this a while back. Because while in 2026, touchscreen controls on a premium notebook are sort of an assumed feature now, he does have a point.
It'll be interesting to see how Apple changes macOS to adapt to this new control format, and the structural changes to accommodate screen pokes (like a stronger hinge).
