In a flurry of early morning announcements, Apple has pulled back the curtain on a new chipset powering its portable professional-class devices.
The star of the show is the new M5 chip, which has added more Neural Accelerators to its GPU, allowing the new chip to chew through AI workloads. Beyond that, the GPU has also been tuned to provide better graphics performance, suggesting this model will be even better for gaming.
14-inch MacBook Pro
The new M5-equipped version of everyone’s favourite laptop is not getting many updates this year beyond the new chip and the improvements it brings. In its press release, Apple highlights the faster memory bandwidth since it should help with bulk importing large files.
Users who spend a lot of time dealing with large files can now pre-order a 4TB version of the smaller MacBook Pro. However, it will cost an extra $1,800 over the base model, which starts at $2,099. It will ship on October 22.
M5 iPad Pro
The new M5 chip in the iPad Pro is likely overkill for most people, but I am curious how much friction it can remove from iPadOS. For instance, with the new AI enhancements on the chip, will I be able to generate Genmoji without waiting at all? It might be overkill, but there is something to be said when everything loads instantly.
Now that the A19 Pro chip is on par with the M2, which was once an iPad Pro chip years ago, it makes me wonder how long until this kind of power makes its way down from an iPad and into an iPhone as well.
Beyond the chip, the new model is using Apple’s N1 array for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth support, and cellular iPad Pros will now use the C1X modem. Ideally, this should bring some efficency gains to the new tablet to help it last even longer out in the field. The N1 is also supposed to help with things like AirDrop and wireless hotspotting so it will be interesting to see if they bring big upgrades if paired with an iPhone 17.
The smaller storage models (256GB and 512GB) now come with 12GB of RAM, bringing them up to par with the higher tiers. This new RAM also has a higher memory bandwidth than I mentioned above, which should allow for better multitasking and faster imports.
Apple has finally added quick charging to the iPad Pro so it can now get up to 50 per cent in 30 minutes with high-wattage chargers. The company’s press page recommends the new 40-60 Watt Dynamic Charger, but in my experience, I bet any 60-watt charger would do the trick.
You can pre-order this tablet today. The 11-inch model starts at $1,399, and the cellular model starts at $1,799. It will ship on October 22.
M5 Vision Pro
Apple has updated the Vision Pro from the M2 to the M5 chipset, which should increase performance substantially. There is also a new Dual Knit Band that seems to combine both of the bands from before into one, hopefully, a more comfortable experience. This band is also available for the original Vision Pro.
The new chip also increases the display resolution a little bit, with it pushing around 10 per cent more pixels than the previous generation. This new model can also get its display up to 120Hz, which can help with motion blur and a better experience with Mac Virtual Display.
Notably, without changing much, Apple has been able to extend the headset’s battery life by another hour, but that appears to only be while watching video. Real-life battery performance gains will probably be closer to just 30 minutes.
The upgraded Vision Pro starts at $4,999 and will be up for pre-orders on Friday. It will then be in stores on October 22.
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