[HN Gopher] M5 MacBook Pro No Longer Coming in 2025
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M5 MacBook Pro No Longer Coming in 2025
Author : behnamoh
Score : 49 points
Date : 2025-08-08 18:43 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| evtothedev wrote:
| My completely uninformed bet is that with the release of open
| source GPT, they're planning to embed this on all laptops. That
| will require a huge bump in the baseline specs, and therefore you
| have cascading delays.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _My completely uninformed bet_
|
| If you're completely uninformed, why post at all? What value do
| you add to the conversation?
| Lammy wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with speculation that's clearly labeled
| as speculation.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| There certainly can be. Reputation risk/being canceled,
| misinformation spreading, ethicial/legal issues depending
| on the topic, public opinion influence, authority problems,
| not understanding the community you are participating in,
| etc.
| crinkly wrote:
| Good. Hopefully we're going back to more sensible and sustainable
| 2-3 year cycles.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| Would be nice to do that for OS releases too. I feel like the
| yearly macOS releases are too ambitious at this point, and
| Apple's software quality is suffering. 2-3 year cycles would be
| much more sustainable. Hardware is good enough now to not need
| a new release ever year.
| cnst wrote:
| How's a "2-3 year cycle" sensible or sustainable?
|
| Who's forcing you to get every upgrade every year?
|
| The yearly releases make a lot of sense for everybody, because
| then you can upgrade on your own schedule, instead of delaying
| the upgrade because the product was released a full 2 years
| ago, at a time your older one is on its last breath.
|
| In fact, yearly releases are then also more sustainable, too,
| since the purchasing would be spread out to each year (on an
| as-needed basis), instead of having a month-long cycle every 3
| years, necessitating the extra infrastructure all along the way
| (from the stores to manufacturing to shipping).
| mrweasel wrote:
| 5+ years for home users and systems administrators. I have a
| 2020 M1 MacBook Air, it's fine for everything I need. The only
| issue is, as other points out, the external monitor issue. Only
| one monitor, and certainly no daisy chaining of displays.
| crinkly wrote:
| Yep that. I just upgraded my M1 Pro MBP to an M4 Pro MBP and
| I can't tell the difference really. I'll leave it 6 years
| this time.
| selectodude wrote:
| My M1 Pro turns 5 pretty soon and I don't even have the
| tinge of an itch to upgrade. Which maybe isn't great for
| Apple since Nvidia ended up getting my $1000 this year.
| davidf18 wrote:
| It is from July 10.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Apple seems to overlook how much timing matters for Mac sales in
| academia. Macs--especially MacBooks--absolutely dominate among
| professors (I'd guess ~90% in my department).
|
| The academic fiscal year often ends in Aug/Sep, and new faculty
| usually get a "technology fund" for buying their first computer.
| A lot of us use that to get the latest Mac. Historically, Apple's
| October refresh was just late enough to miss that budget window,
| but people would still wait a month or two for the new models.
|
| If they push announcements even further (as the article suggests
| --early 2026), it's a different story. New hires can't wait half
| a year with no laptop, so they'll just buy whatever's top-of-the-
| line right now. For research folks who need GPU power, that could
| easily mean a 5090-based laptop instead of a Mac.
| moralestapia wrote:
| They would just buy the M4? -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| The average user, even the "power user", does not care/know the
| difference between an M4 and whatever the M5 will be.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Like I said, most people want something that's the "latest";
| M4 is already one year old.
|
| wrt the second part of your comment: Academics care about
| speed, RAM, battery life, the ability to run the latest AI
| models at a decent speed (M4 is still relatively slow).
| nickthegreek wrote:
| m4 laptop checks the boxes on ram options (albiet a high
| price) and battery life.
|
| The m4 macbook is running AI slow compared too..... what
| competitive alternative?
|
| I'm impressed at how fast gpt-oss-20b ran on my m2 24gb
| system.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| > (M4 is still relatively slow).
|
| How does it compare to Windows laptops?
| cromka wrote:
| But as you said, 90% use Apple anyway, so why would Apple
| bother at all?
| mrweasel wrote:
| Most of academics write papers, they care about none of
| those things.
|
| Unless you work on AI, which most don't, then you don't
| care that the M4 is a little slow for that purpose. The
| academics who are working on large dataset frequently have
| access to cluster computers or large servers running in the
| university datacenter... or frequently sits under their
| desk, because they have trust issues.
| exasperaited wrote:
| > most people want something that's the "latest"
|
| Most people want something affordable and adequate.
|
| > Academics care about speed, RAM, battery life, the
| ability to run the latest AI models at a decent speed (M4
| is still relatively slow).
|
| Most academics do not give a flying fuck about running
| local LLMs. Academia is more than LLM researchers.
|
| Most academics probably care most about battery life and
| portability and whether it runs Teams, like every other
| person.
| titanomachy wrote:
| To a first approximation, 100% of Apple's customers are not
| university professors.
| Detrytus wrote:
| What about university students? They also start their classes
| in September, and while they have no "budgeting deadline",
| they still need to buy some computer around that time.
| cvwright wrote:
| I think Apple has historically used the college student
| market to clear out their remaining stock of last year's
| MacBooks. Otherwise why release the new models _just_ after
| classes have started?
| maratc wrote:
| Nothing changes about them, as (previously) new Apple
| MacBooks weren't available until October, more than a month
| after their classes start.
| Detrytus wrote:
| But the argument here was that one month delay was not
| ideal, but acceptable, but a longer delay will have more
| severe effect on demand.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > What about university students?
|
| interestingly, i have a teen that will be heading off to
| college in a couple years. My plan is to send him off to
| the dorm with a Macbook and not his gaming rig heh.
| Although, inevitably, it will be up to him to decide how to
| make the best use of his time..
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Is anybody buying x86 based laptops nowadays? It seems that
| there are few advantages over ARM based Windows/Linux or the
| M-series laptops.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Most people buying laptops, probably.
|
| The advantage is all of that legacy software that some
| process relies on and hasn't been meaningfully updated in 10+
| years and won't be ported over to the ARM processors that you
| damned kids are running on because back in my day we paid for
| one copy of x86 software and that got us through 10 winters,
| dammit.
| criddell wrote:
| I think that's still most of what Dell, HP, and Lenovo sell.
| SwamyM wrote:
| Most of corporate America is still primarily using x86
| systems.
| wmf wrote:
| Windows on ARM doesn't work well and has very low sales.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Link me to a reliable brand of ARM laptop that runs Linux and
| is high performance!
|
| I'm enjoying my framework AMD laptop although the battery
| life with suspend is miserable.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Unfortunately the AMD models don't support real sleep, only
| "nap," like a tablet. Guess how I found out?
|
| Our Intel Framework does, although you might need to use
| Linux to utilize it.
| sturob wrote:
| https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/lenovo/lenovo-edu-
| chr...
| whizzter wrote:
| I think it might just be the other way around, if they front-
| loaded a lot of inventory shipments before tariffs were due to
| hit they might be loaded with unusually high inventory levels
| that needs shifting and will be hard to do so at price if a new
| model is out.
|
| Add to this the recent economic uncertainty and prospective
| buyers might just have been holding up purchases (thus further
| adding to inventory if they already front-loaded before
| tariffs).
|
| As for people buying powerful machines that could be worth
| going to a 5090 based machine instead, they're probably a
| fairly small part of the Mac purchaser market in the big
| picture.
| ryao wrote:
| They could just buy the M4 models.
| maratc wrote:
| "There's a rumor about certain Apple product and it says that the
| previous rumor about same product was wrong."
| tracker1 wrote:
| If I were to guess, it's likely that sales projections are down
| right now, and they're hoping by keeping the existing line a bit
| longer, new buyer numbers will be larger in the spring. Most
| people don't upgrade every generation and a lot of people are
| still running M1/M2 devices.
|
| I would also speculate that there may be some growing pains for
| the n2 production from TSMC, and/or a desire to get there in the
| AZ fab production before launch to avoid tariffs hitting their
| bottom line. They'd rather pay 12-20% more for just the CPU than
| eat large tariffs on the full cost. I don't think they'd be able
| to significantly raise prices further based on tariffs, like some
| other companies with smaller margins are forced to do, on order
| to be competitive.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| Yeah I'm on an M1 and it's still outstanding.
|
| The only motivation to upgrade is battery degradation or
| getting more RAM to run larger LLM models locally.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| I upgraded from an M1 to an M4 MBP recently and although the
| performance gains were mostly incremental, the matte screen
| (fucking _finally_ Apple) is really nice and a good reason to
| upgrade if you ever plan on using it in a brightly-lit area.
| It's a must-have.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I run an M4Pro Mini, connected to an LG 49" ultrawide. I
| have an M1Max MBP, collecting dust, upstairs.
|
| Frankly, the MBP is still an excellent machine, but I don't
| travel, anymore, and this big honker that is as wide as my
| desk, has me spoiled.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I switch to 45" UWQHD myself.. slightly taller with
| bigger pixels for work and enjoy it immensely. I've had a
| few issues where my vision got dramatically worse a
| couple years ago so even my 32" 1440p was a struggle at
| times.
|
| With this display, it's similar to two 4:3 aspect
| displays in my typical use... my IDE or Code pinned on
| one side, my browser or another app on the right.
|
| Overall, it's been pretty great.
| wmf wrote:
| N2 production in Arizona won't start for years. Also I'm
| expecting M5 to be on N3.
| tracker1 wrote:
| s/N2/N3, in any case... the planned node.
| SlowTao wrote:
| The more I think about it the more I find it kind of odd yet
| somewhat endearing that we have so much of our lives determined
| by the orbit of the planet. Not so much things that are actually
| affected by it like seasons and its impacts on ecology, but on a
| yearly scale we had software updates, new hardware and financial
| reconciliation. Things that all feel so abstract and yet are tied
| to the cycle of our rock spinning around the sun. The druids
| approve!
|
| So I have no issue when something like a laptop being pushed
| back, it was all very arbitrary anyway. Can they release is a
| Mars based yearly cadence?
| lordnacho wrote:
| Isn't this one of those "how Roman roads determined our rail
| gauge" things?
|
| Seasons -> harvest -> traditions freeze working/holidaying
| times -> kids start school a certain time -> gotta sell them
| computers to be ready at those times.
|
| Something like that, in a million different ways.
| cnst wrote:
| I'm writing this on a 16GB M1 MacBook Air, but I've gotten
| disillusioned with macOS and Macs.
|
| When everything is done in a browser, the biggest differentiator
| on a laptop would be monitor and peripheral support, and Apple is
| behind the competition.
|
| macOS has no support for daisy-chaining with DP MST, no support
| for a second monitor (new to M1, the 2020 Intel model does
| support dual external monitors), no way to turn-off antialiasing,
| limited ports, RAM and storage options, limited repair and
| expansion options.
|
| Why exactly do we even still use macOS anyways?
|
| Even the cheapest Chromebook laptops have better monitor support
| and better expandability, at 1/10th the cost.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| No support for MST daisy chaining is unfortunate, but not
| really a dealbreaker since most users spending a lot of time at
| a desk are using either a standalone dock (e.g. CalDigit TS4)
| or a monitor that has a dock built in (like Dell's U2724DE)
| which also achieves one-cable multimonitor (+charging). The
| limit on number of monitors isn't an issue on the newer low end
| models.
|
| On the hardware side of things, the big differentiators are
| build quality and battery life. To get either as good as is
| found on MacBooks you're likely to be spending about as much in
| the x86 world. Those dirt cheap Chromebooks in particular are
| miserable to use.
| goosedragons wrote:
| MST makes getting a dock cheaper. It's very cheap to get a
| hub or dock that can do two or even three monitors over MST,
| with power pass through and a few extra USB ports for a mouse
| and keyboard or printer. Like $30-$50. Maybe you spend
| another $50 for a decent extra charger to go with it.
|
| On Mac you basically HAVE to get an expensive $200+ TB dock
| to get a one cable multi-mon setup.
|
| The new M4 MBAs can still only do two external screens at a
| time. It's better but the competition can do more.
| cnst wrote:
| Yeah, my $79 Chromebook, could literally already do 2
| external USB-C monitors, at 1/10th the price of an M4
| MacBook Air!
|
| The best part about DP MST is that most monitors already
| have a DP-Out, so, you can already daisy-chain even without
| having to buy a cheap dock.
|
| I'm pretty sure DP-Out would be even more popular if not
| for the macOS users leaving all the negative reviews about
| the daisy-chaining not working after paying a full half
| price for a DP MST monitor compared to a Thunderbolt one!
|
| Ironically, some manufacturers simply remove the DP-Out
| port, and release the resulting product as a Mac-friendly
| version of an identical PC monitor with a DP-Out.
|
| My fav USB-C / DP MST monitor deals, have been HP Z24m G3
| at $149.99 USD in early 2024, and PHILIPS 4K UHD IPS Black
| 27E2F7901 at $209.99 in mid/late 2024, both 400nits with DP
| 1.4, USB-C and DP-Out, at far cheaper prices than any
| comparable Thunderbolt monitor:
|
| https://slickdeals.net/f/17456364-23-8-hp-z24m-g3-2560x1440
| -...
|
| https://slickdeals.net/f/17650827-philips-creator-
| series-27e...
| cnst wrote:
| _> CalDigit TS4_
|
| Wait, that's a $379 dock? Isn't it a bit too much to pay so
| much just to get back about the same ports that most non-Macs
| still have?
|
| If I connect my peripherals like SSD and mouse/kb through
| this dock, will they continue working during a power outage?
| Or do I now have to get a UPS for my laptop, too, because I
| can't use the native ports anymore, and have to use a dock to
| connect the most basic equipment?
|
| _> Dell U2724DE_
|
| https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-
| ultrasharp-27-thunderbo...
|
| $599 USD for QHD 2560x1440? That's just not very competitive.
|
| I got a QHD 2560x1440 with RJ45 and a DP-Out for $149 brand
| new, for HP Z24m G3:
|
| https://slickdeals.net/f/17456364-23-8-hp-z24m-g3-2560x1440-.
| ..
|
| So, it's basically a 4x premium for TB.
|
| ---
|
| Many monitors on the market today do come with a dock built-
| in, but most of the time, it's a DP MST kind of dock, so, the
| daisy-chaining won't work in macOS, since it has no support
| for DP MST.
|
| Thunderbolt is VERY rare across most monitors. It's even more
| rare on the models that go on sale and aren't broken in some
| fundamental way (IIRC, some Samsung TB monitor that was on
| sale, would actually have terrible reviews specifically
| because it still didn't work daisy-chained properly).
|
| Since you're a Dell fan, I've just casually looked over the
| filters at https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/computer-
| monitors/ar/8605, and it's got 42 for USB-C, but only 6 for
| Thunderbolt; that's 7 times more non-Thunderbolt monitors
| that Thunderbolt.
|
| If we limit the search to QHD 2560x1440, there's 11 USB-C,
| but only 1 Thunderbolt. You're basically paying 2x more, or
| $300 more, for a "free" Thunderbolt dock.
|
| Compare to DP-Out options. For example, HP Z24m G3 2560x1440
| was on sale for many months throughout 2024 at $149.99 USD
| brand new, it does have DP-Out and RJ45, a very quality
| monitor.
|
| As for battery life, I'm not doing video encoding or
| compiling on my Mac, so, battery life is just a matter of
| power consumption. There are many ARM-based Chromebooks that
| are powered by like 5W CPUs. By definition, they're INCAPABLE
| of consuming their 50Wh battery in less than 10 hours; this
| often results in a better battery life than my MacBook Air,
| simply because M1 is still a 15W CPU, and can easily made to
| waste lots of cycles doing pointless webpage busywork that
| noone cares about, diminishing the battery life.
|
| Yes, they've finally fixed the regression with a second
| monitor come M4, but it's still missing the most basic ports
| and expansion features.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Really, they could probably get away with selling M4 devices for
| another couple cycles. As far as performance is concerned, even
| going back to the M1, the only group feeling inadequacies large
| enough to make upgrading a "must" are those whose needs sit
| within spitting distance of cusp of consumer/prosumer computing.
| Battery life is still industry leading with only a handful of
| competitors just recently being able to claim similar real world
| numbers (thanks mostly to Lunar Lake, which isn't available for
| many models and comes at the cost of some performance).
|
| I've used both M1 Max and M4 Max machines extensively and while
| the latter is a good deal faster, it's only really noticeable
| with longer sustained tasks and particularly large projects. The
| high-RAM variants of M1 models in particular should continue to
| be quite servicable for some time to come.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| Same problem as their phones. They don't do anything new or
| interesting year over year. The CPU gets a bit faster, but that's
| it. They haven't provided a compelling reason to upgrade in a few
| years
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(page generated 2025-08-08 23:00 UTC)