JPack
macrumors P6
No, the high school kids have to be in school, silly.
Tech journalists can afford to fly and stay at a hotel for three days.
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MacBook Pro: What to Know as Wait Continues for M5 Pro and M5 Max
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No, the high school kids have to be in school, silly.
Tech journalists can afford to fly and stay at a hotel for three days.
Creators?
Software sells hardware. Software exclusive to Apple can only sell Apple hardware. Creators using Apple's software (FCP and Logic), are likely to drop the money on an upgrade.
Also, the linked article literally uses Affinity Photo as a benchmark - which is now owned by Canva and is free. But they don't mention Photoshop and Lightroom - which are the industry standard. The inclusion of Photoshop/Lightroom over Affinity would support your claim that Apple is only chasing the high-end customers, but given that they've mentioned editing iPhone footage in FCP and using Affinity in the M4 release, suggests that the Creator Studio subscription would be a good time to announce new MacBooks.
At the very least, 20% across parameters like single core, multicore and graphics performance. This seems to be the case in previous iterations of the m vs m pro chips, so thats my guess. Between the m4 pro and m5 pro I wouldnt expect anything mindblowing if you go pound for pound.
Due to the absolutely insane delivery delays with any sort of custom configuration (even adding a different power brick..!) bringing the delivery all the way to March, and even non-custom configurations being delayed with wait times up to 2 weeks rather than next day, it has to be launching very very soon. I’ve also noticed herein the UK retailers are running out of stock for M4, even Amazon. Meanwhile, the bass M5 MBP has normal delivery times across the board and so does every other Mac, so this is not a supply issue.
Offline data processing of research data I can't upload to big model for confidentiality reasons (this is the main use) Also local code completion for small chunks of python code. There is also an element whirr the sheer geek value of having an AI running on a small computer I carry around and how that appeals to my 1980's 2000AD informed sci-fi aspect of my personality 🙂 I'd also like to have the security of having a model locally in case of ... well just in case.
I'm seeing 2-3 weeks for the standard configuration of the M4 Pro MBP where as the standard config M5 is next day. I suspect they were pushing to launch this week and hit snags.
JPack
macrumors P6
Stock of existing models needs to wind down as well. Stores around Cupertino for example, all have in stock M4 Pros. The ones that didn’t, had an ETA of Feb 3. If you just look at BTO ETAs, you don’t get the complete picture.
In short, it wasn’t going to be this week.
JPack
macrumors P6
That’s boilerplate marketing language to remind you to buy iPhone 16 Pro and the ecosystem around it. This is similar to how the Apple Store checkout page asks if you want to preload Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, whether you buy an iMac or Mac Studio.
I’m sure you’ve never worked in high-tech. There are many many reasons for such a delay: the yield of the chips may be lower, there’s an unexpected design issue found during initial testing, the thermal envelope is different than calculated, there’s some other supply chain issue, etc. You can bet that the marketing people are pushing the engineers daily asking “is it ready yet”.
OK, but the article specifically mentions FCP and videos shot on iPhone. It's the only actual app mentioned in the article, everything else is just a comparative benchmark on 3rd party software - including Affinity, but not Photoshop or Lightroom. The article also has an Apple Intelligence section about document creation with Scrivner screenshots, which is hardly high-end processor demanding software.
The article you've posted actually doesn't support the claim that the MacBook is targeting only high-end professional creators. It includes a lot of lower level software examples - including FCP - which you explicitly stated wasn't mentioned.
Creator Studio is Apple's creator software ecosystem. They definitely want people using it because that software can only be used on Mac. They've gone after the 'creator' market - YouTubers and streamers. That's who is buying macbooks with pro/max chips.
Im confident you understand that this sounds less like insider-knowledge and more like a "how many tech buzzwords can I fit into a paragraph". Pretty sure you yourself never worked in tech because then you would know that thermal envelope issues isnt something that apple just "discovers" unless something seriously went sideways during late stage production. Thats at least something that would have leaked. But sure, the marketing department are probably walking the halls and asking "is it ready yet".
tenthousandthings
Contributor
I’m sure you’re right that this week was never happening (meaning I don’t think anything has been delayed, macOS 26.3 was always going to be the launch release), but those two things are not mutually exclusive. Apple will bundle Creator Studio with macOS 26.3 on new M5 and M5 Pro/Max machines, within the next two weeks, before the lunar new year begins.
Doing so means very little for users who already own Logic Pro and/or Final Cut Pro (or those invested in Adobe’s Creative Suite, or other industry software), but that doesn’t mean Creator Studio won’t be part of the marketing pitch. Of course it will be, but I can also agree that Apple will aim the launch of the new silicon architecture at the high end. The M5 Max will be the focus, but it will be instructive to see how the M5 Pro tier relates to it.
In the end, this will be an interlude before June and the launch of the M5 Ultra and new AppleDisplay products.
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The revolution is M6 with PCIe-like internal SSD, with sequential speeds of about 15,000 MB/s and random IOPS speeds as the Samsung 9100 Pro internal SSD 8 TB.
I don’t have insider knowledge of Apple, but I do work in high tech, and outsiders claiming “there’s no reason for company X to not do Y” just don’t know how things work at the cutting edge of technology. I would sooner bet that “something seriously went sideways” rather than “they just don’t feel like it.”
It doesn’t even have to have been “during late stage production”. It could very well have been a calculated decision to move forward with M5 already (also because it’s not just for Macs) while they put a “tiger team” on solving the pro/max/ultra issues.
Elohim369
macrumors regular
Apple has the release of laptops down like probably nobody else but there's always a possibility of last minute issues.
That's why Apple is very smart and never pre-announces a date.
When they do pre-announce, you can be sure the items are already stacking up in the warehouse, meaning they announce things when they've already been produced - not before. Like these 1 week "come to our Apple event" invites for journalists are not engineering deadlines, the engineering at this point has been done, and production is in full swing.
I have too much time on my hands clearly but if I understand correctly the M5 Max (and maybe pro) chips have a different packaging than previous chips which should make them easier to cool - separate CPU and GPU cores. But that would then also mean the cooling system will need to change so can't just drop in an M5 Max into a M4 MBP and call it a day....