M5 Macs and iPads Coming Later This Year
Credit: Nasim Dadfar / Michael Jeffery / Unsplash
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While it doesn’t take a lot of clairvoyance to predict that Apple will release an M5 MacBook Pro this fall, it seems that the Mac won’t be the only device to get the next generation of Apple silicon.
Now that the era of Apple’s M-series chips is in full swing, the MacBook families seem to have settled into a nicely predictable release schedule: Pro models in the fall and Air models in the spring.
The first real M1 MacBook Pro models — the redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch versions sporting Apple’s M1 Pro and M1 Max chips — landed in October 2021. This was followed by the M2 Pro/Max models in January 2023, which was a more unusual date for these to arrive. There were also two generations of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, a modestly updated MacBook that stuck with the old Intel design, but it’s hard to include that one as, despite the “Pro” suffix, it wasn’t much more than a glorified MacBook Air — as evidenced by both the M1 and M2 versions launching alongside the corresponding MacBook Air models.
By October 2023, Apple had retired that odd little duckling, ushering in an M3-powered 14-inch MacBook Pro with the same design and many of the same specs as its more powerful M3 Pro and M3 Max siblings. This was repeated in October 2024 with the M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max updates of the MacBook Pro lineup.
Meanwhile, following the fall and late spring releases of the M1 and M2 models, the MacBook Air also settled into an early March schedule with the M3 MacBook Air in 2023, which was repeated earlier this month with its M4 successor. The M4 versions of the MacBook Pro were announced precisely one year after the M3 versions, on October 30. The M4 MacBook Air family was off by only a day, coming on March 5, 2025, as opposed to the M3 versions that launched on March 4, 2024.
So, it’s a fair assumption that this October will herald the release of the M5 MacBook Pro lineup. We’ll likely also see the M5 MacBook Air models arrive in March 2026.
Although rumors last year led to some hope that the M5 MacBook Pro would get a new ultra-thin design, more recent reports suggest that won’t happen before 2026, at which point Apple may also move to an OLED screen. Expect this year’s M5 MacBook Pro to look virtually identical to the current M4 models (and the M3 versions before that). As usual, it will be what’s packed inside that counts.
The M5 iPad Pro
What’s more interesting is that this fall could also mark the arrival of a new M5 iPad Pro. We’ve heard murmurings about this over the past few months, but it’s always much more challenging to pin down Apple’s iPad release dates.
Last year, Apple broke an 18-month dry spell — 2023 was the first year in iPad history that zero new models debuted — with the release of the M4 iPad Pro, shocking nearly everyone by debuting its newest Apple silicon on an iPad, six months before it would come to the Mac.
That iPad Pro skipped over the M3 chip entirely, and it was so ahead of the curve that some wondered if Apple might do the same with the M5 chip, letting the M4 iPad Pro reign supreme until an M6 version was ready sometime in 2026. That started to sound even more plausible when Apple refreshed the iPad Air with an M3 chip earlier this month.
Had that mid-tier model gained the M4 chip that many expected, it would have seemed reasonable to see an M5 iPad Pro follow soon after to keep the most premium tablet a step ahead. However, the M3 iPad Air means the M4 iPad Pro still has a comfortable lead.
Nevertheless, Apple seemingly wants to give it an even bigger leap, as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has confirmed with his sources that an M5 iPad Pro is already in “advanced testing” in preparation for a fall launch.
Based on Apple’s usual release schedules, it’s possible that Apple could once again use the iPad Pro to introduce the M5 chip, although any gap between it and the MacBook Pro will likely be short.
Apple nearly always unveils new iPhones in September. While it occasionally has an iPad to announce during that event, that hasn’t been an iPad Pro since the original 12.9-inch model debuted in 2015. Subsequent iPad Pro announcements have been all over the place. Last year’s M4 iPad Pro came in May, while the M2 version that preceded it debuted on October 18, 2022, and the two generations before it arrived in April and March.
Since Apple doesn’t like to steal too much of the iPhone’s thunder, an M5 iPad Pro would almost certainly be another October release. It could come alongside a MacBook Pro, but that would be a first for a fall event; the only time that’s ever happened was during Apple’s 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), when new old-style 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models debuted alongside modestly updated 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro devices with faster Intel Kaby Lake processors, although Apple did use its October 30, 2018 event to introduce both the new-style iPad Pro models — the first ones with Face ID — alongside a new MacBook Air with a Retina display.
It’s also unclear what events Apple may hold for these launches. The M4 iPad Pro was unveiled at a virtual event as Apple naturally wanted to tout how incredibly thin it was, and it also had a new Apple Pencil Pro to show off. If the M5 iPad Pro is just a spec bump — which it’s largely expected to be — then it’s more likely to just get a press release, much like the M3 iPad Air earlier this month.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
