Apple sets an Oct. 28 date in Los Angeles, where its first touchscreen MacBook Pro is expected

“Pro and tell.” Three words, a play on the show-and-tell of American classrooms, where each child brings in an object to present. That is the tagline on the invitation Apple sent on Monday, October 19, to journalists and content creators, for Wednesday, October 28, at 10 a.m. Pacific time in Los Angeles. That is 5 p.m. in Dakar and Abidjan, 6 p.m. in Paris and 8 p.m. in Nairobi.

The card mentions no product, no chip and no price. Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, limited himself to a social media post: “Can’t wait to pro and tell next week.” The word “Pro” is enough to settle one question, though: according to MacRumors, it signals that the new high-end laptop will keep the MacBook Pro name rather than the “MacBook Ultra” label floated for a while.

What to expect, according to Bloomberg

Everything that follows comes from Mark Gurman, the Bloomberg reporter who covers Apple and who revealed the date on October 15, before the official invitations went out. The centrepiece would be a fully redesigned MacBook Pro, in 14- and 16-inch sizes, with an OLED touchscreen. It would be the first Mac you can touch, after more than a decade in which Apple refused to put touchscreens on its laptops. The camera notch would give way to a “Dynamic Island”, as on the iPhone, and the machine would be noticeably lighter, though not necessarily much thinner.

The accounts of the chips conflict. For months, rumours tied the touchscreen MacBook Pro to M6 Pro and M6 Max processors. In June, Gurman reported that Apple had revised its roadmap and would use the M5 Pro and M5 Max, the chips in the MacBook Pros released in the spring, to keep the project on schedule. That is the version 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac and Macworld now carry. Apple has said nothing on the matter.

The rest of the line-up would be less dramatic. An entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro and an iMac would move to the M6 chip without a change in looks. The iPad mini would switch to OLED as well, with its front camera moved to the long edge for video calls in landscape, and redesigned speakers.

No keynote: videos and hands-on time instead

The format confirms a change of habit. Gurman describes an all-day “launch experience”. According to him, Apple is not planning a keynote streamed live from the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino: it would publish press releases and videos online while guests try out the devices. Apple used the same approach in New York on October 13 for the HomeView smart display, the new Apple TV and the HomePod mini, all unveiled without a stage or a livestream.

The products would not be available right away. Again according to Bloomberg, Apple has scheduled a reset of its stores overnight from Thursday, November 5, to Friday, November 6, which points to a release on the 6th. Nothing has been announced for other countries.

That leaves the price, for which nobody has yet produced a solid figure. The current 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 chip starts at $1,999 in the United States, after an increase of $300 to $500 depending on configuration in June, Macworld notes. An OLED touchscreen costs more to make, and specialist sites, Gurman first among them, expect another rise. When the iPad Pro moved to OLED in 2024, its starting price went up by $200.