Apple has spent more than a decade keeping touchscreens off the Mac, and today it made the leap. The new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro brings touch input to the full display for the first time and swaps mini-LED for tandem OLED. Together they make this the most significant update to Apple’s pro laptop since the move to Apple silicon, and a genuinely exciting one for creative professionals.
The panel, called PROLED XDR, builds on the stacked OLED technology that impressed on the iPad Pro in 2024. Apple quotes up to 2,000 nits peak brightness for both HDR and SDR content, a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and refresh rates that scale from 10Hz up to 120Hz. Colour coverage now includes Adobe RGB alongside P3, which Apple says takes Rec. 2020 coverage past 80 percent. For photographers and designers who have long relied on a separate monitor for print work, that alone could make this the most capable portable display they’ve owned.
Touch is where things get really interesting. Apple’s earlier experiment, the Touch Bar, never quite found its audience, but this approach is far more ambitious. The touch sensor sits inside the panel rather than on top of it, which Apple says cuts latency, and a redesigned hinge keeps the screen steady when tapped. Because macOS 27 translates taps into clicks, existing apps should work from day one. Support is already lined up from Adobe, Microsoft, Blender, DaVinci Resolve and others, with some arriving later this year. Designers get the whole screen as a canvas, musicians can play instruments onscreen, and iOS developers can test touch behaviour without reaching for an iPhone. The Dynamic Island also arrives on Mac, putting calls, music and Live Activities within easy reach.
The OLED switch also made the machines noticeably lighter. The 14-inch model drops to 3 pounds and the 16-inch to 4 pounds, while both get slimmer bodies and slightly larger 14.2- and 16.3-inch screens. M5 Pro and M5 Max chips power the lineup with up to 128GB of unified memory and storage now reaching 16TB, and Apple rates battery life at up to 24 hours in its own testing.
UAE pricing starts at AED 11,999 for the 14-inch M5 Pro and AED 14,499 for the 16-inch, with M5 Max models from AED 19,299 and AED 20,999. Pre-orders open today ahead of November 6 deliveries. With developers already on board, touch looks set to become a natural part of how pros use the Mac, and this generation could be remembered as the one that redefined it.
