Apple has spent the better part of a decade telling everyone that touchscreens on laptops are a bad idea. That stance is apparently about to change. The company is preparing to launch its first touch-screen MacBook featuring M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, with a release window targeting late this year or early next year.
The move would mark one of the most significant design philosophy reversals in Apple’s recent history. Steve Jobs famously dismissed the concept of touch-screen laptops. Tim Cook’s Apple held that line for years, even as competitors like Microsoft built entire product categories around the idea with its Surface lineup.
What we know about the hardware
The M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are already shipping in the current MacBook Pro lineup, which Apple launched on March 3, 2026. Those models came with some genuinely impressive specs: up to 4x AI performance compared to their predecessors, Wi-Fi 7 support, Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, and battery life stretching to 24 hours.
Storage baselines got a bump too. The M5 Pro starts at 1TB, while the M5 Max comes with 2TB out of the box. Pre-orders opened on March 4, with general availability following on March 11.
