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The "notch" has always been idiotic to me. It's simply lazy engineering and a poor design choice. Any intrusion into an already limited laptop display, whether a notch or a hole punch, is unacceptable. Apple should be putting a FaceID capable camera into the bezel like PC laptop manufacturers have been doing for YEARS now. If I had to use the MacBook's display as my primary, I probably wouldn't own a MacBook at all. I'm fortunate to have full-sized monitors at all my work locations, though, so the notch doesn't bother me as much. Seriously....who thought this was a good idea?!?
Uh, it was “in the bezel”, then they just, ya know, extended the screen into some of the bezel 🤷‍♂️
 
The "notch" has always been idiotic to me. It's simply lazy engineering and a poor design choice. Any intrusion into an already limited laptop display, whether a notch or a hole punch, is unacceptable. Apple should be putting a FaceID capable camera into the bezel like PC laptop manufacturers have been doing for YEARS now. If I had to use the MacBook's display as my primary, I probably wouldn't own a MacBook at all. I'm fortunate to have full-sized monitors at all my work locations, though, so the notch doesn't bother me as much. Seriously....who thought this was a good idea?!?
The notch does not cut into the actual display area of your content, macOS does not do that, this is a myth.
The actual usable content area is still 16X10 just like it was on the Intel MBPs before the notch, in fact, you actually gain screen area because the menu bar is moved up out of the 16X10 area.
Obviously, it’s still a preference thing, of course, but calling it “lazy” when it clearly took hours of development time to get it to work properly is just wrong.
And I’m pretty sure there are utilities that literally get rid of the notch completely and basically turn your 16.2 inch screen into what functionally is a gapless 16X10 display like previous MacBooks before the Notch.
If it bothers you that much you can get rid of it, and if you won’t get rid of it, then it clearly doesn’t bother you that much.
 
Did someone ask for thinner MacBook Pro?
The problem with the previous generation MacBook Pros aren’t that they were thin, it’s that they were thin and not built to handle being thin.
Now that MacBooks have 24 hour battery life, stay cool almost all of the time and have some of the most efficient silicon on the planet, yeah, they could probably get a little bit thinner.
The 15 inch MacBook Air is .3LB lighter than the *14* inch MacBook Pro, which is in a similar footprint to the old *13* inch MacBooks. There are some huge weight decreases that could happen along with getting thinner, as long as they don’t sacrifice the battery or performance.
Or the ports, although I wouldn’t be shocked to see them drop the HDMI for another thunderbolt port and just keep the SD card slot.
 
I know what to do! Buy this years model, give it to your mother when the year is out, and then buy next years model! Why spend 3000 dollars when you can spend 6000, isn’t that right.
 
Really? Wait for the headline in 18 months, it’ll be like this:

5 Reasons to Wait for Next Year's MacBook Pro​


It’s called technology evolution and has been going on for decades.
Buy what you need today and get in with life.
 
"Thinner, lighter" worries me. My MacBook Pro is my main choice for media because of the great speakers. The first thing that they'll have to downgrade for a thinner MacBook will be the speakers.
 
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Thinner, Lighter Laptop
[...] Apple is reportedly focusing on delivering the thinnest possible device without compromising on battery life or major new features.
Yes, please. Bring back the super-light and thin 2015 MacBook form factor, with updated specs. You can do it, Apple!
 
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As long as the M6 gets good battery reviews that will probably be my upgrade model from my current M1. But I will say currently I don't feel any need to upgrade, the 14" M1 has been my favorite Apple laptop ever.
 


Apple in October 2024 overhauled its 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, adding M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips, Thunderbolt 5 ports on higher-end models, display changes, and more. That's quite a lot of updates in one go, but if you think this means a further major refresh for the MacBook Pro is now several years away, think again.

M6-MacBook-Pro-Feature-1.jpg

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has said he expects only a small performance boost for the 2025 MacBook Pro models with the introduction of new M5 chips, while the "true overhaul" for the laptop will come in 2026. So if you are planning to skip this year's MacBook Pro, or you're just plain curious about what's two generations away, here are five big changes rumored to come to Apple's premium laptop line next year.

OLED Display
Goodbye, mini-LED
Several rumors have indicated that the first MacBook Pro models with OLED displays will be released in 2026. Research firm Omdia claims Apple is "highly likely" to introduce new MacBook Pros featuring OLED displays next year, while display analyst Ross Young has said that Apple's supply chain is expected to have sufficient notebook-optimized OLED display production capacity in 2026 to bring the technology to MacBook Pro. Compared to current MacBook Pro models that use mini-LED screens, the benefits of OLED technology would include increased brightness, higher contrast ratio with deeper blacks, improved power efficiency for longer battery life, and more.

Thinner, Lighter Laptop
Major Redesign
The switch to OLED displays could allow future MacBook Pro models to have a thinner design, and rumors suggest that is indeed what Apple intends. When the M4 iPad Pro was unveiled in May 2024, Apple touted it as the company's thinnest product ever. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman subsequently called the iPad Pro the "beginning of a new class of Apple devices," and said Apple was working to make the MacBook Pro thinner over the "next couple of years." Apple is reportedly focusing on delivering the thinnest possible device without compromising on battery life or major new features.

Notably, the MacBook Pro got thicker and heavier with its most recent redesign in 2021. A major highlight was the reintroduction of several ports that were removed in previous iterations in favor of chassis thinness. How Apple will make its 2026 MacBook Pro thinner without removing the functionality it reintroduced fairly recently is the big question.

Punch-Hole Camera
No More Notch
If you are fed up of the notch intruding on your Mac display, here's some good news. Apple plans to remove the notch from the MacBook Pro in 2026, according to a roadmap shared by research firm Omdia. The roadmap indicates that 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models released next year will have a hole-punch camera at the top of the display, rather than the notch we've become accustomed to. A MacBook Pro without a notch would offer additional visible pixels on the screen, creating a more uninterrupted and cohesive display design.

5G Modem
Cellular Connectivity
Early in 2025, Apple plans to introduce the custom-built 5G chip that it's had in the works for years now. The modem chip will be added to the iPhone SE, low-cost iPad, and iPhone 17 "Air," giving Apple an opportunity to test the technology before rolling it out to flagship devices. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple will then consider bringing cellular connectivity to the Mac lineup for the first time. The company is said to be "investigating" the possibility of adding a second-generation modem chip to a future Mac as soon as 2026, teasing the potential for a cellular MacBook Pro in the same year. The first Apple modem chip will be limited to sub-6GHz 5G speeds, but the second-generation version will support faster mmWave technology, according to Gurman.

M6 Series Chip
2nm Process
Assuming Apple follows a similar timeframe to its M4 chip rollout, Apple will update the MacBook Pro lineup in October this year with M5 series chips. The chips will be manufactured with TSMC's third-generation 3nm process, known as N3P, resulting in typical year-over-year performance and power efficiency improvements compared to the M4 series of chips. M6 chips, on the other hand, could adopt a completely new packaging process for Apple's 2026 MacBook Pro models.

According to one rumor, Apple's A20 chip in next year's iPhone 18 models will switch from the previous InFo (Integrated Fan-Out) packaging to WMCM (Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module) packaging. WMCM integrates multiple chips within the same package, allowing for the development of more complex chipsets. Components such as the CPU, GPUs, DRAM, and Neural Engine would therefore be more tightly integrated. While we don't know for sure, this could see Apple develop the M6 using the 2nm process while taking advantage of WMCM packaging to make even more powerful versions of its custom processor.

Article Link: 5 Reasons to Wait for Next Year's MacBook Pro

Reasons to not wait?

They're thin enough as it is. Seriously. This is well past the point of stupidity. Give me more power and durability in my PRO laptops please, or leave them alone. The current design is the best Apple Laptop in years. Why screw it up? The Air can be the heroin addict thin laptop. Don't need two of um.

Tariffs could increase costs astronomically. The specs I want are expensive enough right now.
 
Most important reason:

it’s newer. And that makes it better.
Newer than rumors-only is not possible. So the not released MBP will be the best MacBook to buy ever!
 
Now that MacBooks have 24 hour battery life, stay cool almost all of the time and have some of the most efficient silicon on the planet, yeah, they could probably get a little bit thinner.
But it would certainly be more difficult to stay as cool as now in more thin design so why even go there? It’s not like Pro’s are not portable. They already much thinner than any Windows machine with similar power. And we already have Air that is prioritises thin and light design over power.
 
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I'm steady waiting here for the M4 Studio and you're already making me second guess for the M5? This is Madness! Give me my square box Apple!
 
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If this happens, I’ll likely upgrade at that point. 👍🏻
 
The "notch" has always been idiotic to me. It's simply lazy engineering and a poor design choice. Any intrusion into an already limited laptop display, whether a notch or a hole punch, is unacceptable. Apple should be putting a FaceID capable camera into the bezel like PC laptop manufacturers have been doing for YEARS now. If I had to use the MacBook's display as my primary, I probably wouldn't own a MacBook at all. I'm fortunate to have full-sized monitors at all my work locations, though, so the notch doesn't bother me as much. Seriously....who thought this was a good idea?!?
I don't think we really need a webcam in a laptop, but we didn't loose any display area when they added the notch. We actually gained screen area when they extended the screen upward around the webcam.

The displays of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros are both 74 pixels taller than the previous 16:10 displays.

And the displays of the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Airs are both 64 pixels taller than the previous 16:10 displays.
 
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These are ******** clickbait articles. Buy what you need, when you need it and don't look back. Technology's ever-changing. If you continually "wait to buy" what's on the horizon, you'll never own anything.
 
I'm steady waiting here for the M4 Studio and you're already making me second guess for the M5? This is Madness! Give me my square box Apple!
M6 mate......
they post an article in Jan 2025 for a computer released in Oct 2026 [maybe....]
 
"Next year" could easily be November 2026 (certainly by the time DHL delivers), which feels a long way off!

Sounds like some great updates otherwise!

It almost certainly will be, as that's the traditional cycle and the article didn't imply otherwise. It's always possible there will be a surprise early update ala M2 but in this case it's probably more likely it would slip to early 2027 given the extensive nature of the updates + new process.
 
These are ******** clickbait articles. Buy what you need, when you need it and don't look back. Technology's ever-changing. If you continually "wait to buy" what's on the horizon, you'll never own anything.
This is the consumerism at its best - something new is always coming.
I have got off that rat race of buying and upgrading every year. It really is for suckers.
 
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What? No silicon-carbon batteries? I want >33% more mAh!
Remember, just because a change isn't mentioned in an early rumor like this doesn't mean that it will not happen. Of course we don't know yet that it will. It's just too early yet to know for sure all that will be included so don't get preemptively disappointed.
 
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