Through the mirror: Just over 16 years ago, as other PC makers were introducing touchscreens en masse, the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs called the combination “ergonomically terrible.” Since then, the company has resisted calls to equip the MacBook with a touchscreen. Delivery of Apple’s latest high-end model, which is also the first to have an OLED display, begins on November 6th.
The new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR is Apple’s first laptop with a touchscreen and OLED panel. Prices start at $2,900 for the 14-inch model or $3,400 for the 16-inch model, both with the M5 Pro SoC. If you want to max out, the 16-inch variant of the M5 Max starts at $4,800, while a fully equipped 16-inch model costs $14,549.
Anyone who has used an iPad recently knows what to expect from the macOS Touch experience. When Apple made iPadOS more Mac-like last year, observers immediately and correctly speculated that the company was preparing macOS itself for touchscreen support.
However, the new MacBook also adopts the iPhone’s Dynamic Island, allowing users to easily access music, Spotlight search, and Siri AI chats at the top center of the screen.
For its first laptop OLED screen, Apple chose Tandem OLED technology, which stacks two OLED layers to improve readability, brightness, color gamut and durability. Compared to the previous mini-LED models, the maximum HDR brightness increases from 1,600 to 2,000 nits and the SDR brightness now also reaches 2,000 nits for outdoor use. The panel also adds Adobe RGB color space coverage in addition to P3 – oh, and the glowing Apple logo is back.
Otherwise, under the hood, the PROLED
The new model is also lighter. For example, Apple reduced the weight of the 16-inch M5 Pro variant from 4.7 to 4 pounds. The height, width and depth are also a few hundredths of an inch smaller.
Despite the smaller housing, the OLED screen increases by a tenth of an inch and a few dozen pixels and achieves a resolution of 3,472 x 2,266. And while the camera is still 12MP with 1080p recording, the new model offers advanced video stabilization in case users touch the screen during video calls.
Equipping the MacBook with a touchscreen effectively pushes back comments from Steve Jobs and Tim Cook that go back more than a decade. Both former Apple CEOs opposed touchscreen Macs, with Jobs arguing that vertical touchscreens were uncomfortable because users’ arms would eventually tire. Not every laptop has a touchscreen these days, but Apple seems to have accepted that the format has a viable audience.
The PROLED XDR MacBook Pro is the latest in a rapid series of product launches under new Apple CEO John Ternus. In recent weeks, the company launched its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, its first smart home hub, introduced M6 processors with another new MacBook Pro and an iMac, and updated the iPad mini and Apple TV. More new devices are expected by early next year.
