Apple's Touchscreen MacBook Pro Will Be 'Significantly Lighter,' Bloomberg Reports

Mark Gurman says the first OLED MacBook Pro with a touch screen is due by November, with a rebuilt interior that takes weight out of Apple's heaviest laptop.

CUPERTINO, Calif. - Apple’s first touchscreen MacBook Pro will be “significantly lighter” than the laptops it replaces, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in his Power On newsletter on Sunday, Oct. 4. Gurman wrote that “Apple has reengineered the machine’s interior miniaturizing parts and rearranging components to make the computer much easier to carry,” and repeated that the redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch models should arrive by next month. Apple has not announced the machines.

The current 16-inch MacBook Pro Photo: Apple

Gurman did not give a target weight. He did set the stakes. The current 16-inch MacBook Pro weighs as much as 4.8 pounds, he wrote, compared with 3.3 pounds for the 15-inch MacBook Air, so any meaningful cut would be noticeable to anyone who carries one every day. AppleInsider, which lists the 16-inch at 4.7 pounds, notes that a lighter Pro was first reported back in 2024. The new detail is the size of the drop.

The current MacBook Pro display. The redesign is expected to move to OLED with touch Photo: Apple

The weight is only part of the overhaul. According to Gurman’s reporting as summarized by 9to5Mac, the new MacBook Pro will be the first Mac laptop with a touch screen and the first with a tandem OLED panel, and it will adopt a Dynamic Island at the top of the display. 9to5Mac says Apple is preparing changes in macOS to support touch input and the Dynamic Island, and that the machines are being tested on macOS 27.2.

Gurman laid out the timing in the first episode of Bloomberg’s new Power On podcast last week. “Apple, I believe, will introduce its first touchscreen MacBook Pro this fall, as early as October. It could slip to November, but as early as October,” he said, adding that Apple is testing it internally on macOS 27.2, a beta already in developers’ hands.

The current MacBook Pro in the field Photo: Apple

On chips, 9to5Mac reads the newsletter as pointing to the M5 Pro and M5 Max that Apple introduced in the current MacBook Pro in March. GSMArena, covering the same report, says it expects newer silicon. Apple has said nothing either way, so the processor lineup remains unsettled until launch.

Apple’s M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, which power the current MacBook Pro Photo: Apple

The laptops would land in a crowded few weeks for Apple. Gurman has reported an Oct. 13 event for a smart home hub, a new HomePod mini and an updated Apple TV, and the iPhone Duo foldable ships Oct. 23. GSMArena adds that Gurman expects an OLED panel to reach the iPad mini as well. AppleInsider points out that a late October or November release would keep the redesign inside the MacBook Pro’s 20th anniversary year.

For buyers deciding whether to wait, the current MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max went on sale in March with Apple’s claim of up to 24 hours of battery life. If Gurman is right, the redesign keeps the Pro label but sheds a meaningful share of that weight and adds a screen you can touch.