Apple unveiled its first touchscreen MacBook Pro on Wednesday, October 28, at the Pro and tell event, adding a touch OLED panel to a laptop category its executives spent years criticizing. The 14-inch model starts at $2,899 and the 16-inch version at $3,399, with availability beginning November 6, The Verge reported, and pre-orders opened the same day, 9to5Mac said. The machine matters less as another spec bump than as a break with Apple’s own public case against touchscreen laptops.
Key Takeaways
- 14-inch touchscreen MacBook Pro starts at $2,899; 16-inch at $3,399.
- Display offers up to 2,000 nits, 120Hz, and 10,000,000:1 contrast.
- Models use M5 Pro or M5 Max chips, not this week’s M6.
- Pre-orders opened October 28; availability begins November 6.
Touchscreen MacBook Pro Display and Design
Apple calls the screen a ProLED XDR display, a tandem OLED panel, The Verge reported. It offers up to 2,000 nits of brightness, a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio. A Dynamic Island on the display can show Live Activities, similar to the feature on iPhones.
The glowing Apple logo is back on the lid. 9to5Mac noted that Apple used a light-up logo on notebooks for years until the 12-inch MacBook and the 2016 MacBook Pro, and that Apple calls the new design both thinner and lighter than the standard MacBook Pro models in the same size configuration.
M5 Pro and M5 Max, Not the M6
These laptops use M5 Pro or M5 Max chips, not the M6 chip on the other MacBook Pros announced this week, The Verge reported. 9to5Mac said the touch models run the same chips as existing MacBook Pros that lack an OLED touch display. Apple upgraded those standard 14- and 16-inch machines to the current M5 Pro and M5 Max chips in March.
That chip split is the shopping detail easy to miss in a crowded week. On Monday Apple announced an iPad Mini with an upgraded OLED display, and on Tuesday it rolled out M6 upgrades for the MacBook Pro and iMac, which The Verge’s on-the-ground live blog called quiet refreshes that look like their predecessors. Read against those refreshes, Wednesday’s model is the real break, even though it stays on M5 Pro and M5 Max rather than M6.
Price, Weight, and November Availability
The figures below use the starting prices and weights The Verge reported. Based on those announced specs, moving up in size changes weight and starting price, not the chip options. 9to5Mac reported silver or space black finishes, with standard or nano-texture display configurations, and deliveries starting November 6.
| Model | Starting price | Weight | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14-inch | $2,899 | 3 pounds | M5 Pro or M5 Max |
| 16-inch | $3,399 | 4 pounds | M5 Pro or M5 Max |
- Pre-orders opened October 28, the announcement day.
- Deliveries and availability begin November 6.
- Choose silver or space black.
- Choose a standard or nano-texture display configuration.
Los Angeles Launch, No Public Livestream
Apple first hinted at the Pro and tell experience on October 19, 9to5Mac reported. The site described John Ternus as Apple’s new CEO and said he shared a spotlight teaser earlier Wednesday, then posted a first look on X. The Verge, on the ground in Los Angeles rather than at Apple Park in Cupertino, said there was no public livestream.
Why Apple Reversed Its Touchscreen Stance
The reversal is the part that will follow this laptop longer than any brightness number. On a 2012 earnings call, former CEO Tim Cook, responding to a question about why he doesn’t think the tablet and laptop will converge, said the following, The Verge reported:
You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user.
In 2010, Steve Jobs called touchscreen laptops “ergonomically terrible,” The Verge reported. Apple later tried a narrower form of touch, replacing function keys with the Touch Bar on MacBook Pros starting in 2016, returning to physical function keys with the 2021 redesign, and fully dropping the Touch Bar in 2023. Wednesday’s laptop is the first touchscreen on a Mac if that keyboard strip is set aside.
For buyers, the useful reading is that Apple is no longer treating touch as a category error. It is selling touch as a Pro feature, on a tandem OLED panel rated up to 2,000 nits, while keeping the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips already used in non-touch MacBook Pros. Whether Cook’s toaster-and-refrigerator warning still holds is something only extended use will show. What the announcements do show is a company that criticized the idea in 2010 and 2012, retired its Touch Bar compromise by 2023, and is now taking pre-orders for the laptop those comments argued against.
