Apple took to the internet to unveil a suite of new products that will be powered by the powerful M5 chip today, as the company continues to cater to creatives.
After unveiling new portable devices last month with the iPhone 17 and Watch Ultra, Apple has set its sights on its next upgrade to the ecosystem with a 14-inch MacBook Pro, a new iPad Pro, and the Vision Pro headset. These devices are all powered by their latest next-generation 10-core GPU architecture (complete with a Neural Accelerator in each core for faster and more efficient AI performance), the M5.
The M5 reportedly “features the world’s fastest performance core, with up to a 10-core CPU made up of six efficiency cores and up to four performance cores,” claiming, “Together, they deliver up to 15 percent faster multithreaded performance over M4.” This means the M5 is their most powerful chipset to date, and it will power the three new devices.
The M5’s focus on AI functionality and inclusion of Neural Accelerators in their product line, delivering up to 3.5x the AI performance and up to 1.6x faster graphics than the previous M4. This means the new MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro headset will function markedly better (15 percent faster) than predecessor products. Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, John Ternus, says, “M5 marks the next big leap in AI for the Mac and delivers a huge boost in graphics performance, accelerating demanding workflows for everyone from students to creatives, developers to business professionals, and more,” showing Apple’s commitment to creatives, AI advancement, and multitasking users.
Regarding the iPad Pro with M5, the M5 chip pushes the limits of what’s possible on iPad Pro to deliver. The M5 chip lets the iPad Pro deliver up to 6.7x faster pro-rendering performance with ray-tracing and 4x faster AI image generation over the iPad Pro with M1. iPad Pro with M5 comes outfitted with iPadOS 26, which introduces a reimagined windowing system that gives the user greater power and flexibility than before.
According to Apple, the new 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 is an upgrade when compared to Intel-based systems. The MacBook Pro with M5 delivers up to “86x faster AI performance, up to 30x faster GPU performance with ray tracing, and up to 5.5x faster CPU performance” over Intel. Apple also claims M1 upgraders will experience up to 6x faster AI performance, up to 6.8x faster GPU performance with ray tracing, and up to 2x faster CPU performance when upgrading to the new M5 platform. With the M5 announcement, it appears Apple is continuing to go all-in with AI-based innovation.
As announced today, the new MacBook Pro starts at $1,599 for the 14-inch variant. The M5-equipped iPad Pro starts at $999, and the second-generation Vision Pro headset starts at $3,499. Interestingly enough, earlier this year, a report indicated that Apple would be winding down production of the headset due to lacklustre sales, which was then unconfirmed by Apple. This M5 announcement is confirmation that Apple is continuing production on the Vision Pro.
More information on everything announced by Apple today can be found on the official website. The new MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with M5 can be pre-ordered now on the official site as well.
