Apple M5-powered MacBook Pro family once again tipped to miss 2025 launch window

A sizeable chunk of older Mac users may be holding out for the M5 SoC, which is widely expected to drop sometime in the last quarter of this year. Although previous rumors have stated that the MacBook Pro will receive the M5 treatment within this year, a fresh tidbit from a reliable source claims otherwise.

According to Ming-Chi Kuo's latest newsletter, the A20 Pro SoC expected to be found in the iPhone 18 Pro lineup will shift away from TSMC's InFO (Integrated Fan-Out) to WMCM (Wafer Multi-Chip Module) and integrate the underfill and molding processes, thereby saving material expenditure and "process steps" to refine yields. In the subsequent statement, Kuo states that the M5 chips are unlikely to make the switch to WMCM, which are set to power the "2026" MacBook Pros.

The fact that Kuo referred to the upcoming MacBook Pro family as 2026 models almost certainly indicates that the prominent analyst believes the products will not be seeing the light of day this year. Mark Gurman had previously stated that the MacBook Pros with the M5 chipsets will launch by the end of this year, although he did state last month that Apple was "considering" pushing the laptops to early 2026.

As usual, Apple's MacBook upgrade cycle remains confusing. The M2 Pro and Max upgrades arrived 15 months after the M1 Pro and Max, while the M3 Pro and Max dropped just 9 months after its predecessors. The high-end M4 SoCs again switched to a 12-month cycle, and now it appears that the high-end M5 chips will yet again exceed a 12-month cycle. Considering how strictly Apple sticks to a 12-month cycle for its A-series SoCs, it does seem rather confusing why the M-series chips are refused the same treatment.

Of course, since the M5 MacBook Pros are highly unlikely to get any major design or external upgrades, folks who require a new laptop urgently will probably not lose out on much by pulling the trigger on an M4 MacBook Pro instead (currently $1,299 on Amazon).