Apple has introduced touchscreen functionality to the MacBook Pro, ending its long-standing reluctance to add touch controls to its laptops. Unveiled at the company’s “Pro and tell” event on Wednesday, the new MacBook Pro comes with an OLED display, touch gestures and Apple’s M5 Pro and M5 Max processors. It also features a redesigned interface and a lighter body.
In India, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is priced at Rs 3,49,900, while the 16-inch version costs Rs 4,09,900. Both models are scheduled to go on sale from November 9.
Apple MacBook Pro: What’s new
The addition of a touchscreen is the most significant change to Apple’s professional laptop. Users can scroll through documents, enlarge images, draw directly on the display and annotate content using touch controls. Apple says the feature could also improve professional workflows, enabling designers to manipulate 3D models and music producers to adjust settings with their fingers.
Apple has redesigned the interface to make touch-based interactions more intuitive without abandoning the familiar keyboard and trackpad controls. The new MacBook Pro also introduces Dynamic Island, a feature previously associated with the iPhone. Positioned at the top of the display, it provides access to Spotlight search, Live Activities, music controls and other information.
The laptop features a tandem OLED panel, which Apple calls PROLED XDR. The company promises deeper blacks, better contrast and more accurate colours. The display supports refresh rates of up to 120Hz through ProMotion and can reach a peak brightness of 2,000 nits for HDR content. Buyers can also opt for a nano-texture finish designed to minimise reflections.
The new MacBook Pro is powered by the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, built for resource-intensive activities such as video editing, 3D rendering, software development and artificial intelligence workloads. According to Apple, the processors feature Neural Accelerators within their GPU cores to improve AI performance. Storage options extend up to 16TB, while the company claims storage speeds can be twice as fast as before.
Additional improvements include an updated thermal management system, a better six-speaker audio setup, a studio-quality three-microphone array, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity. The laptop retains familiar ports, including HDMI, an SDXC card slot, MagSafe 3 and a headphone jack, along with three Thunderbolt 5 ports.
Apple claims the redesigned MacBook Pro can deliver up to 24 hours of battery life and reach a 50 per cent charge in 30 minutes. The new models are also lighter than their predecessors.
A significant shift in Apple's laptop strategy
Apple’s move is noteworthy because the company has opposed touchscreen Macs for many years. In 2010, Steve Jobs described touchscreen laptops as “ergonomically terrible”. In 2012, former CEO Tim Cook also argued against merging tablets and laptops, comparing the concept to combining a toaster with a refrigerator.
The company later introduced the Touch Bar, a touch-sensitive strip that replaced traditional function keys on MacBook Pro models launched in 2016. However, Apple restored physical function keys with its 2021 redesign and discontinued the Touch Bar in 2023.
The latest MacBook Pro marks a substantial departure from that approach by introducing direct touchscreen interaction to Apple’s flagship laptop while preserving its established keyboard-and-trackpad controls.
