Apple is about to do the thing Steve Jobs said it would never do. On or around Tuesday, October 27, the company is expected to introduce its first-ever touchscreen Mac, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who reported the plans on October 8 citing people familiar with the matter.

The timing makes this the second hardware push in a single month. Apple’s “Welcome Home” smart home event lands Tuesday, October 13. Two weeks later, Gurman says, the focus shifts back to computers with an online video presentation and an in-person component for the press. Apple declined to comment on the plans.

What’s on the docket

Gurman reports four hardware stories for the late-October round, aimed squarely at creative professionals in video production, photo editing, and music production:

  • New 14-inch and 16-inch touchscreen MacBook Pro models with OLED displays, thinner and lighter than current machines, with a Dynamic Island replacing the notch. These are expected to run the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips already found in Apple’s high-end lineup, per 9to5Mac’s writeup of the report.
  • An OLED iPad mini with a FaceTime camera relocated for wide-screen video calls and a revamped speaker system. Leaked code discovered in September pointed to an A20 Pro chip inside, MacRumors reported.
  • A refreshed entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro powered by the M6 chip.
  • An M6 iMac.

The last two, Bloomberg says, will look like their current versions — standard chip refreshes, not redesigns. But the real story is the touchscreen Pro.

The touchscreen Pro, in detail

Apple has been working on an OLED Mac for several years, and at one point some watchers predicted it would be called the MacBook Ultra. Gurman says the redesigned notebooks will stay in the MacBook Pro family instead. The 14-inch and 16-inch machines are said to be “significantly lighter” than today’s Pros, with OLED panels that respond to touch and a Dynamic Island-style cutout for the camera.

Chips are where it gets interesting. Earlier forecasts pointed to M6 Pro and M6 Max for the redesign, but the latest reporting says the touchscreen models may keep M5-class silicon while the plain M6 goes into the base 14-inch Pro and the iMac. If accurate, that hints at where Apple’s silicon team is spending its cycles — likely an AI-heavy push for a future generation.

Here’s the wrinkle Apple will have to sell: a touch layer costs money, adds thickness, and needs an OS ready for fingers. macOS has never been a touch interface. Shipping a touchscreen Mac means shipping touch affordances in the interface without wrecking the mouse-first experience that defines the platform. That’s not a hardware problem. It’s a software bet.

The bigger picture: a 15-year reversal

Jobs was blunt about this. He called touch on a laptop a bad idea — ergonomically wrong, he argued, because nobody wants to reach up and smudge a vertical screen. Apple spent a decade and a half making the case that touch belonged on the iPad and precision belonged on the Mac. Touch Bars, trackpads, the iPad-as-second-screen Sidecar play — everything reinforced the split.

A touchscreen MacBook Pro concedes that the market stopped listening. Every major Windows laptop sells with touch as a default or an option, and creative pros — Apple’s own target audience for this launch, per Bloomberg — live across both worlds. When Apple describes a launch as geared toward video, photo, and music work, it’s describing people who already tap their screens on Windows all day.

There is also an anniversary angle Macworld flagged: this year marks 20 years since the first MacBook. Hard to imagine a more symbolic place to break the taboo.

The launch fits the pattern of a record-setting product slate under CEO John Ternus, who took over last month and is pushing Apple into new markets while chasing more services revenue. October 13 brings the smart home push; October 27 brings the biggest Mac shakeup in years. For a new CEO, that’s a loud first two months.

What to watch

None of this is official. Apple hasn’t confirmed the October 27 date or any of the products, and Gurman hedges the timing as “on or around” the 27th. Pricing, availability, and the actual shipping dates will only come from Apple.

Watch three things when the presentation drops. First, whether the touchscreen is the headline feature or buried as a spec-sheet line — that tells you how confident Apple is about the software story. Second, whether the Dynamic Island makes the notch feel obsolete overnight or turns out to be window dressing. And third, whether the M5 Pro/M5 Max pairing means an M6 Pro and Max are coming later, on Apple’s terms, or whether the touchscreen redesign is the whole generation.

FAQ

When is Apple launching the touchscreen MacBook Pro? On or around Tuesday, October 27, 2026, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, citing people familiar with the matter. Apple has not publicly confirmed the date.

Will the new MacBook Pro have an OLED display? Yes, according to Bloomberg. The 14-inch and 16-inch models will have OLED touchscreen displays, a thinner and lighter design, and a Dynamic Island instead of a notch.

What else is Apple expected to announce on October 27? An OLED iPad mini with a relocated FaceTime camera and revamped speakers, plus M6 versions of the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro and the iMac that look like current models, per Bloomberg’s reporting.

Why is a touchscreen Mac such a big deal? Steve Jobs long opposed touch on the Mac, and Apple held that line for about 15 years. A touchscreen MacBook Pro reverses one of Apple’s most consistent design positions.

Sources: Bloomberg (via Mark Gurman’s October 8 reporting), MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Macworld, Gadgets360, The Hindu BusinessLine.