MacBook Ultra Ships With M5 Chips, Not M6, Despite Touchscreen Redesign
What You Need to Know
- MacBook Ultra reportedly features thinner design, OLED panel, and touchscreen—firsts for Mac laptops.
- MacBook Ultra ships with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips instead of newer M6 generation.
- Updated MacBook Pro retains existing design while receiving M6 chip upgrade.
- New form factor prioritized over processor generation in high-end MacBook lineup strategy.
Apple is apparently planning two very different answers to the same question this fall: what does a high-end Mac laptop look like in 2025? Rumors point to a split lineup, with one machine chasing a completely new form factor and another sticking to a proven design while getting a processor upgrade.
The more dramatic of the two is the MacBook Ultra, a reported redesign that would make the machine thinner and lighter than current MacBook Pro models. More striking are the firsts it supposedly brings: an OLED panel and a touchscreen, neither of which has appeared on a Mac laptop before. For anyone who has watched Apple resist touch input on macOS for years, that would be a notable shift in direction.
The catch is the processor. The touchscreen MacBook is expected to ship with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips rather than the newer M6 generation. The implication is that Apple is treating the new form factor as the headline, not the silicon, which is a reasonable engineering prioritization but an unusual one for a product positioned at the top of the lineup.
The standard MacBook Pro takes the opposite approach
The updated MacBook Pro, by contrast, keeps the existing design and gets the M6 chip instead. That pairing makes the buying decision genuinely awkward. Buyers who want the fastest available Apple silicon will be choosing the less exciting enclosure, while buyers who want the new look and touch capability will be running hardware that is already one generation behind before the machine ships.
Context helps here: the M5 MacBook Pro managed 550,000 units in its first quarter against 900,000 for the MacBook Air, a sign that the Pro lineup already struggles to justify its premium to many buyers. Adding a price premium for a touchscreen running older chips will require some careful positioning. Apple’s refurbished store now carries March 2026 hardware, meaning M5 Pro machines will have a competitive secondary market to contend with almost immediately after the Ultra launches.
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