Apple spent years insisting the Mac would never get a touchscreen. That is about to change. The company is planning an overhaul of its entire Mac line, and the most striking new model is a MacBook you can prod with a finger.
The refresh spans this autumn and next year, and covers roughly 11 machines, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported. It starts modestly, with a refreshed entry 14-inch MacBook Pro on the new M6 chip and the first new iMacs in two years. Both are due this autumn. A representative for Apple declined to comment.
The centrepiece comes later. A redesigned high-end MacBook, in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes, will carry a touchscreen and an OLED panel, both firsts for the Mac, MacRumors reported. It is due between the end of this year and early next. Apple is tuning macOS so that on-screen controls swell when you tap them.
The spec sheet is not the story. The story is why a company this conservative is redrawing its most stable product line at all. The answer is AI.
The Mac mini’s strange new life
Mac sales are climbing for a third straight year, and an odd new audience is part of the reason. People running compute-heavy AI agents have taken to the Mac mini and Mac Studio, prizing their power and their knack for hooking into other systems. Demand has outrun supply so badly that some new orders will not ship for three months.
That pull is reshaping Apple’s plans. New Mac mini and Mac Studio models are in testing, with upgraded chips, but their timing hinges on a shortage of memory chips. The same crunch has squeezed manufacturing and pushed up prices. In February, for the first time, Apple began building the Mac mini in Houston rather than Asia.
The rest of the line
The rest of the range is moving too. A new MacBook Air lands early next year, with an OLED version pencilled in for as early as 2028. A base MacBook Pro with a standard M7 chip follows, as does a refreshed MacBook Neo, Apple’s $699 budget laptop. Further out sits an OLED iMac, matching the screen tech arriving elsewhere in the range.
The prices tell their own story. Apple lifted Mac prices across the board in June, and a fully loaded 16-inch MacBook Pro now runs to $9,999. A device-leasing plan that includes the Mac starts on 28 July.
Apple built its fortune on phones. But the Mac, of all things, is having an AI moment, and the touchscreen it swore it would never make is the proof.
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