Apple puts a touchscreen on the MacBook Pro for the first time, with prices from £2,899
The new 14-inch and 16-inch laptops use an OLED screen you can tap, swipe and pinch, and the first deliveries in the UK are due on Friday 6 November.
Apple has launched its first Mac with a touchscreen. The new MacBook Pro went up for pre-order in the UK on Wednesday, and the cheapest version costs £2,899.
For years the company resisted touch on its laptops. The new model lets owners scroll a web page with a swipe, pinch to zoom in on a photo, drag slides between presentations and double-tap a window to fill the screen. Apple says many existing apps will respond to touch straight away because the Mac treats a tap as a click.
What it costs
Apple's full name for the laptop is the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display. UK starting prices, with the education price in brackets, are:
- 14-inch with the M5 Pro chip: £2,899 (£2,749)
- 16-inch with the M5 Pro chip: £3,399 (£3,199)
- 14-inch with the M5 Max chip: £4,499 (£4,199)
- 16-inch with the M5 Max chip: £4,799 (£4,499)
Orders are being taken on apple.com and in the Apple Store app. Deliveries and stock in Apple shops and authorised resellers start on Friday 6 November.
Anyone who wants a MacBook Pro without the touchscreen can still buy one. A day earlier Apple announced a 14-inch MacBook Pro with its new M6 chip, starting at £1,999, on the same release dates.
The screen and the rest
The display uses tandem OLED technology, and Apple says it reaches up to 2,000 nits of brightness. The touch sensor sits inside the display panel rather than on top of it, and Apple has redesigned the hinge so the screen stays steadier when it is pressed.
The Dynamic Island from the iPhone also comes to the Mac, a small pill-shaped area that shows music controls, calls, AirDrop requests and Siri.
Apple says the 14-inch model now weighs 3 pounds and the 16-inch 4 pounds, with up to 24 hours of battery life. Both have three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI, an SD card slot, MagSafe charging and a headphone socket.
