Apple announced a sweeping refresh of its MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro product lines Wednesday, debuting its new M5 chip that the company says delivers the fastest performance yet for its devices, with a heavy focus on artificial intelligence capabilities.
The new MacBook Pro starts at $1,599 and will be available beginning Oct. 22. The 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $999, while the Vision Pro headset-featuring an updated Dual Knit Band-will sell for $3,499. All three products are now available for pre-order in most markets.
Apple said the M5 chip represents a leap in performance, offering four times the peak compute power of the previous M4 chip and up to 3.5 times better AI processing performance. Johny Srouji, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Technologies, said in a release that "M5 delivers a huge boost to AI workloads."
The new processor includes an upgraded CPU and a 10-core GPU with neural accelerators in each core, enabling 4x GPU compute performance versus the M4 and 6x compared with the M1. Apple said the M5's graphics are 35% faster than the M4 and 2.5 times faster than the M1, while CPU multithreaded performance is up 15% from the last generation.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro will include up to 32GB of high-bandwidth memory and faster storage, extending battery life to as long as 24 hours on a single charge, according to Apple. The iPad Pro-offered in 11- and 13-inch versions-will feature up to 16GB of memory and 1TB of storage, along with Apple's new custom C1X cellular modem and N1 WiFi and Bluetooth chips. The devices retain the same physical design as their predecessors.
Wednesday's announcement came as Wall Street analysts closely tracked Apple's pricing and supply chain strategy amid President Donald Trump's tariffs on China and semiconductor imports. Apple said the starting prices for its latest M5 devices remain unchanged from the previous models, a sign the company is absorbing any additional costs.
Apple's December quarter is traditionally its strongest, driven by holiday sales. The timing of the M5 rollout ensures the company will have a full quarter of iPhone 17 sales-released in September-alongside new Mac and iPad models.
While the Mac and iPad are smaller contributors to Apple's bottom line, they remain strategically important. Apple reported $6.58 billion in iPad sales in the June quarter, down 8% year-over-year, and $8.05 billion in Mac sales, up 15%. Combined, they accounted for less than a quarter of Apple's $81.8 billion in total revenue last quarter, far behind the iPhone's $45 billion contribution.
