Apple's 'Pro and Tell' Preview: The First Touchscreen Mac Takes Center Stage

Apple's 'Pro and Tell' Preview: The First Touchscreen Mac Takes Center Stage

An in-person showcase in Los Angeles, not a livestreamed keynote

Apple's third event of the season takes place on Wednesday, October 28 at 10 a.m. PT in Los Angeles under the tagline "Pro and tell." Marketing chief Greg Joswiak teased it on social media on October 19, and invitations to press and creators followed. Rather than a conventional livestreamed keynote, Apple is staging an all-day, in-person product experience with hands-on time. Product details are expected to land through press releases and hands-on coverage, possibly alongside a short online video.

First touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro, the biggest redesign in five years

The headliner is Apple's first MacBook Pro with a touchscreen — reportedly the line's first major redesign in about five years. The 14-inch and 16-inch models move to tandem OLED panels, drop the notch for an iPhone-style pill cutout with Dynamic Island, and come in thinner, lighter bodies. Touch works alongside the keyboard and trackpad as a supplementary input, with macOS 27 said to be adapted for touch gestures. It ends the long-standing rule against touch on the Mac.

Premium models keep M5 while entry models jump to M6

The chip story is unusual. The touchscreen OLED models are expected to run the same M5 Pro and M5 Max chips as today's MacBook Pro, while the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro and a refreshed iMac move to the standard M6, which debuted in the Mac mini in August. The reason, according to reports, is that Apple is skipping M6 Pro and M6 Max entirely and jumping to the M7 family with major neural-processing gains, not due until late 2027 or early 2028. Buyers of the priciest model pay for the display and redesign rather than the newest chip generation.

iPad mini 8 gets its biggest upgrade ever, with a higher price

The compact tablet is in line for a major overhaul. The iPad mini 8 is expected to gain an OLED display, making it the only iPad besides the iPad Pro with OLED, plus the A20 Pro chip shared with the iPhone 18 Pro and the foldable iPhone Duo. Memory reportedly grows from 8GB to 12GB, with roughly 50 percent faster CPU and 2.5 times the GPU performance of the current A17 Pro model. The front camera moves to a landscape position, speakers are reworked, and water resistance improves. The price may climb from the current 599 dollars to around 799 dollars. One supply-chain rumor cautions the OLED panel is 60Hz LTPS, not 120Hz ProMotion.

Ternus's third act after the foldable Duo

Zoom out and this is John Ternus's third event since succeeding Tim Cook as CEO on September 1. The September 9 "Surprise and Shine" keynote introduced the foldable iPhone Duo starting at 1,999 dollars for 256GB — a 7.6-inch inner display plus a 5.4-inch outer display with about 90 percent of an iPhone 18 Pro's screen area — with pre-orders from October 16 and sales across more than 70 countries from October 23. The October 13 New York showcase covered smart-home hardware. Now the Mac and iPad take their turn, with one leak pointing to November 6 sales. If the rumors hold, Apple will have played its foldable, smart-home, and touchscreen-Mac cards in a single season — and pricing will decide how eagerly users reach for that touchscreen.