The M6 MacBook May Lastly Get an OLED Touchscreen

This yr’s MacBook Professional refresh felt extra subdued in comparison with previous years. Apple made much less noise than typical about its new M5 product lineup with a single new 14-inch MacBook Pro mannequin. If the most recent leaks are to be believed, it’s best to in all probability maintain off for a minimum of one other yr. The massive MacBook Professional redesign may grant Mac followers all the pieces they’ve needed since Apple switched to its M-series chips. Sure, that features the long-promised OLED display, a touchscreen, and a brand new design that finally excises the notch again to the pits of hell from whence it got here.

You may already guess who’s spilling the beans on the following MacBook refresh. Bloomberg’s Apple leaker-in-chief Mark Gurman cited his typical slate of nameless sources when he claimed that the M6 MacBook Professional would arrive someday late in 2026 or early in 2027. The present 14-inch M5 MacBook Professional is being offered alongside an M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBook from final yr. Primarily based on earlier leaks, we anticipate Apple to avoid wasting its higher-end M5 chips for early subsequent yr.

Whereas we are able to already guess M6 could have improved efficiency over M5, the next-gen MacBook may lastly supply an natural light-emitting diode show. Any such show makes use of self-emissive materials that provides deep “inky” blacks and higher distinction than a typical LCD. Apple calls the OLED shows in its latest iPhones “Tremendous Retina XDR,” although the cream of the crop amongst Apple’s gadget lineup is the tandem OLED—primarily two OLEDs stacked on high of one another for higher brightness—discovered within the M4 iPad Pro and the newly unveiled M5 iPad Pro.

The icing on the cake could possibly be that Apple lastly presents a touchscreen on a MacBook Professional. Gurman instructed that the PC gained’t be a convertible—these PCs whose screens can twist 90 levels to behave as a type of pill. As an alternative, it could be your typical touchscreen laptop computer, full with the standard trackpad. Apple has lengthy resisted placing a contact display on Macs, figuring that the iPad had that management type coated. Nevertheless, now that iPadOS 26 lastly permits for floating home windows for higher multitasking, the traces between pill and MacBook are beginning to blur. Apple’s present CEO, Tim Cook dinner, once compared touchscreens on laptops to converging “a toaster and a fridge.” I assume we shouldn’t inform him about that toaster with a touchscreen my colleague James Pero lately reviewed.

Not solely may the display feel and look higher, however it might additionally sport options I and different customers have begged Apple to incorporate for years. Present MacBook screens sport a “notch” surrounding the user-facing webcam. The subsequent Mac could push the display edge-to-edge and exchange it with one thing akin to the iPhone’s Dynamic Island. This function pops up with notifications and different helpful data relying on the app working within the background, equivalent to timers or Uber pickup occasions.

Each the 14- and 16-inch MacBooks may obtain these upgrades, in line with Gurman. Apple will possible improve costs of its M6 MacBooks to compensate for the costlier display sort. Present MacBook Execs use a mini LED format, which Apple calls Liquid Retina XDR. The present base M5 MacBook Professional with 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage begins at $1,600.

The previous couple of MacBook refreshes have left us with machines that carry out higher yearly, however with none modifications to their shell, it’s laborious to argue anyone ought to hassle upgrading to the most recent mannequin in the event that they’re nonetheless utilizing an M-series MacBook. Apple could also be saving its M5 Professional and M5 Max chips for early 2026 alongside a brand new M5 MacBook Air. If the corporate continues to be apprehensive a couple of touchscreen Mac, maybe the corporate ought to have one other go on the wonky Contact Bar on the defunct 13-inch MacBook Execs, as if we wanted a reminder of why it’s best to by no means try this once more.