While all eyes are on next year’s rumored folding iPhone, Apple reportedly has big plans for the MacBook Pro, too.
DealSite in South Korea reports that Apple has a deal in place with Samsung Display for OLED panels for the MacBook Pro, and that the first versions of the laptop equipped with OLED will hit the market by the end of 2026. The report follows a similar claim report made by The Elec, which stated that OLED MacBook Pros won’t be available until 2026. In May of 2024, Omdia included the 2026 OLED MacBook Pros in its long-term forecast and repeated the prediction in July.
2026 is when Apple will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the MacBook. While Apple isn’t expected to release a special edition laptop to commemorate the event, the company may take the opportunity to introduce major new features or design changes. The current MacBook Pro uses mini-LED display panels, and an upgrade to OLED would improve the contrast and black levels.
It’s not clear if the 2026 MacBook Pro will implement the Tandem OLED that Apple uses with the M4 iPad Pro. Tandem OLED is used to generate the brightness Apple wants for its pro products, so it seems likely that Apple would use it for the laptop.
A recent report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman stated that Apple may wait until early 2026 to release the M5 MacBook Pro, though Gurman said that “the timing remains fluid.” The M5 MacBook Pro is not expected to have an OLED display. That laptop is likely to feature a chip upgrade and few other new features.
If Apple does ship the M5 MacBook Pro in early 2026 and the OLED MacBook Pro (which would likely have an M6 chip) later in the year, it would make for a short product cycle. The M2 Pro/Max MacBook Pro was released in January 2023 and replaced by the M3 series in November 2023, which resulted in the shortest M-series cycle for the MacBook Pro so far.
DealSite also reports that BOE, a display manufacturer, has ramped up its OLED production to gain a deal with Apple to supply iPad displays.
Author: Roman Loyola, Senior Editor, Macworld
Roman is a Macworld Senior Editor with over 30 years of experience covering the tech industry, focusing on the Mac and other products in the Apple ecosystem. He is also the host of the Macworld Podcast. His career started at MacUser, where he received Apple certification as a repair technician (when Apple did that kind of thing). He's also worked for MacAddict, MacLife, and TechTV.