Apple Inc on Wednesday unveiled refreshed versions of its MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro devices, all powered by a new in-house M5 chip that the company says significantly boosts performance, particularly for artificial intelligence tasks.
The new lineup, available for pre-order immediately and set to go on sale October 22, is Apple’s latest push to capture holiday shoppers during its largest sales quarter. The company is positioning the increased computing power of the M5 as a key selling point.
“The M5 delivers a huge boost to AI workloads,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies, in a statement.
The new devices maintain the same starting prices as their predecessors. The MacBook Pro starts at $1,599, the 11-inch iPad Pro at $999, and the Vision Pro headset, which now includes a Dual Knit Band, at $3,499.
This launch follows Apple’s September introduction of the iPhone 17 and Apple Watch Series 11, a typical fall cadence aimed at driving sales in the critical December quarter.
While the iPhone remains Apple’s dominant product, accounting for nearly half of its $94.8 billion revenue in the June quarter, the iPad and Mac are still substantial businesses. Mac sales rose 15% year-over-year to $8.05 billion in the June quarter, while iPad sales fell 8% to $6.58 billion, which Apple attributed to a tough comparison to the year-ago period when new iPad Pro models launched.
The Vision Pro, however, remains a niche product. Apple does not break out its sales, and analysts believe its revenue contribution is currently negligible.
The new M5 chip is central to the update. Apple claims it offers up to four times the peak compute performance of the previous M4 chip. Despite the performance gains, Apple has held the line on pricing for the new M5-powered models.
The company released a new MacBook Air earlier this year, and the latest Pro refreshes complete its pre-holiday hardware portfolio.