Apple announces updated iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, and Vision Pro all with M5 chip
It's the year of fives.
In a press release today, Apple announced 3 new products – MacBook Pro M5, iPad Pro M5, and Vision Pro with M5. This is typical for Apple, since, just like last year, in October, Apple is yet again refreshing the MacBook Pro, and iPad Pro along with other products.
The iPad Pro does not offer much to report, as it really is just a spec bump. The Apple website shows the M4 and M5 side-by-side and there are no differences other than the M5 chip which offers 12GB of RAM as base, with 16GB being available for the 1TB and 2TB models. It also offers some new AI accelerators, but since Apple Intelligence has not really been a huge success, they are not really needed – yet.
The Vision Pro also offers very few other measurable changes from the M2 model that was announced at WWDC 2023 and released in January of 2024. The only physical change is the announcement of the Dual Knit band, which is essentially two normal Knit Bands but with head support. This should offer some more comfort and stability. The other notable change is that the displays are now 120Hz. This should make navigating around the headset along with animations smoother.
The biggest change is with the M5 MacBook Pro. Just like with the Mac Studio, which released with the M4 Pro and M3 Max chips, the M5 MacBook Pro is just that – no M5 Pro or M5 Max. It is just M5, M4 Pro and M4 Max for the 14-inch model. This is confusing to me because it does not follow the linear design that Apple has had in the past where they will release the base, Pro and Max chips all at the same time. Does this mean that they will release the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips when the M5 MacBook Pro is already a few months old? Will they do the same thing with the M6 MacBook Pro? It is all hard to say, but it is pretty clear that Apple is moving away from its update tendencies (and some smaller overall tendencies) for the better, and for the worse.
The M5 MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro look to be great products. We will have to wait and see what Apple does soon.
