In October 2024, Apple gave its 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models a complete overhaul, with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips, Thunderbolt 5 ports on the high-end models, display changes, and many other upgrades.

However, a bigger upgrade to the MacBook Pro is coming as early as 2026.

M6 MacBook Pro Feature.jpg
Apple is said to have a "real overhaul" with the MacBook Pro 2026. Photo: Macrumors

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the 2025 MacBook Pro models will only get a minor performance boost with the M5 chip, while the “real overhaul” will come in 2026.

Here are five big changes rumored to be coming to Apple's high-end laptop lineup next year.

OLED display

Leaked information says the first MacBook Pro models with OLED displays will be launched in 2026. According to research firm Omdia, Apple is very likely to introduce MacBook Pro with OLED displays next year.

Display analyst Ross Young also believes that Apple's supply chain is expected to have enough laptop-optimized OLED display production capacity by 2026 to bring the technology to the MacBook Pro.

Compared to current mini-LED displays, OLED offers many improvements, including higher brightness, higher contrast ratio with deeper blacks, better power efficiency for longer battery life...

New design is thinner, lighter

The switch to OLED displays could allow the upcoming MacBook Pro to have a thinner design.

When the iPad Pro M4 was announced in May 2024, Apple touted it as its thinnest product yet. Mark Gurman later called the iPad Pro “the beginning of a new generation of Apple devices,” and said Apple was working on thinner MacBook Pros “over the next few years.”

However, the MacBook Pro became thicker and heavier in its most recent redesign in 2021, when Apple re-added many of the ports it had removed to make the body thinner.

The question is how Apple can thin the 2026 MacBook Pro without eliminating these newly added features.

Hole punch camera

If you’re tired of the notch taking up space on your MacBook display, here’s some good news: Apple is expected to remove the notch from the MacBook Pro by 2026, according to a roadmap shared by Omdia.

Next year’s 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models will feature a hole-punch camera at the top of the display, instead of the “notch” that users are used to. This will allow for more pixels to be displayed and create a more seamless screen design.

5G Modem

Apple is expected to introduce a custom 5G chip it has been developing for years in early 2025. The modem chip will be integrated into the iPhone SE, low-cost iPad, and iPhone 17 "Air," allowing Apple to test the technology before introducing it to high-end devices.

Mark Gurman says Apple is “investigating” the possibility of integrating a second-generation modem chip into the Mac line as early as 2026. This opens up the potential for a MacBook Pro with cellular connectivity as early as that year.

Apple's first modem chip will support sub-6GHz 5G speeds, but the second-generation version will support faster mmWave technology, according to Gurman.

M6 2nm Chip

If Apple sticks to its M4 chip rollout timeline, it will update the MacBook Pro line in October this year with the M5 series chip.

The chips will be manufactured using TSMC's third-generation 3nm process, called N3P, which offers performance and power efficiency improvements over the M4 chip.

Next, the M6 ​​chip could use a completely new packaging process, which will be equipped for the 2026 MacBook Pro models.

A rumor says that Apple's A20 chip on next year's iPhone 18 models will switch from InFo (Integrated Fan-Out) packaging to WMCM (Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module).

This technology offers greater freedom in combining different components in a single package, opening up the opportunity to develop more complex chipsets.

This could help Apple develop the M6 ​​chip with a 2nm process, taking advantage of WMCM technology to create more powerful custom chip versions.

The 2026 MacBook Pro will likely be announced in October 2026, following Apple's annual chip upgrade timeline.

If these rumors are correct, the MacBook Pro 2026 will be a significant upgrade, promising to bring a superior experience in terms of performance, design and display technology.

Watch the new MacBook Pro concept video with M6 chip (video source: zellzoi/YouTube):

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