MacBook Pro Likely to Get OLED Display and Thinner Design in 2026

Sunday November 3, 2024 4:45 am PST by Joe Rossignol

While the new MacBook Pro lineup features faster M4 chip options, Thunderbolt 5 support for higher-end configurations, a nano-texture display option, and more, most of the previous MacBook Pro models with Apple silicon chips still offer the latest overall design, and fast performance, which might lead you to avoid upgrading this year.

Apple MacBook Pro M4 hero
If you are planning to skip the new MacBook Pro, here are two bigger changes that are rumored to come to the laptop in a few years from now.

First is an OLED display. Previous rumors have claimed the MacBook Pro will switch to OLED display technology as early as 2026. In the meantime, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and display industry analyst Ross Young both recently predicted that the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro will continue to have mini-LED displays in 2025.

Compared to current MacBook Pro models with mini-LED screens, benefits of OLED technology would include increased brightness, higher contrast ratio with deeper blacks, improved power efficiency for longer battery life, and more. The switch to OLED displays could also contribute to future MacBook Pro models having a thinner design.

Second is the just-mentioned thinner design. Earlier this year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was working to make the MacBook Pro thinner over the "next couple of years." He said that Apple is aiming to create a class of devices that "should be the thinnest and lightest products in their categories across the whole tech industry."

A more vivid OLED display and a much thinner design would be more compelling upgrades that might finally drive existing Apple silicon MacBook Pro users to upgrade.

Update — November 3: In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reiterated that the MacBook Pro will "probably" get a "true overhaul" in 2026, with an OLED display and a thinner design. He expects only a small performance boost for the 2025 MacBook Pro models, with M5, M5 Pro, and M5 Max chips that are "already near completion."

Related Roundup: MacBook Pro

Buyer's Guide: MacBook Pro (Buy Now)

Related Forum: MacBook Pro

Popular Stories

iOS 26.1 Beta Liquid Glass Battery Drain Test: Tinted vs Clear Mode

Friday October 24, 2025 2:30 pm PDT by Juli Clover

In the fourth iOS 26.1 beta, Apple added a "Tinted" option that reduces the translucency of Liquid Glass for those who prefer a more opaque look. I saw some comments wondering whether the setting might preserve battery life, so I thought I'd do some testing. Test Settings I did four separate tests using the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and I kept the parameters as similar as possible. Here are the...

• 101 comments

Apple Reportedly Moving Ahead With Ads in Maps App

Sunday October 26, 2025 6:22 am PDT by Hartley Charlton

Apple Maps could feature integrated ads as soon as next year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. In his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman said that Apple's plan to bring more ads to iOS is moving "gaining traction," with the Maps app being next in line. The project will apparently give restaurants and other businesses the option to pay to have their details featured more prominently in...

• 400 comments

iOS 26.1 Coming Soon: New Features for Your iPhone and Release Date

Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more. Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1. Release Date Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...

iOS 26.1 Coming Soon With These 8 New Features for Your iPhone

Wednesday October 22, 2025 6:15 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more. iOS 26.1 is currently in beta testing. The update will likely be released in the first half of November, and it is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer, but some...

• 35 comments

iPhone 18 Rumored to Feature 50% More RAM

Saturday October 25, 2025 2:57 am PDT by Hartley Charlton

Apple's upcoming iPhone 18 could feature 50% more memory than its predecessor, according to Korea's The Bell. With its latest iPhone lineup, the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max feature 12GB of memory. This is a significant increase of 4GB more their predecessors, largely driven by the demands of on-device artificial intelligence processing. The iPhone 17 is the only new...

• 89 comments

Apple TV 4K Could Still Launch Before 2025 Ends: All the Rumored Features

Monday October 27, 2025 12:51 pm PDT by Juli Clover

Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors. ...

• 115 comments

M6 MacBook Pro: Release Date, Pricing, and What to Expect

Monday October 27, 2025 9:15 am PDT by Tim Hardwick

Apple this month refreshed the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, and higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are expected to follow in early 2026. However, these machines will represent the final update to the current design, with Apple reportedly developing a completely new version of the MacBook Pro packed with next-generation hardware...

• 109 comments

Developers Can Now Make Android Apps With Apple's Swift

Sunday October 26, 2025 4:23 am PDT by Hartley Charlton

The first preview release of the Swift SDK for Android was published this week, allowing developers to build Android apps in Swift with official tooling and making it easier to share code across iOS and Android. The SDK enables Android apps to be built in Swift using officially supported tooling rather than community workarounds. In June, it was announced that Apple's Swift programming...

• 39 comments

iPhone 18 Pro Rumored to Support Full 5G Satellite Internet

Friday October 24, 2025 7:18 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

At least some new iPhone models launching next year may support full 5G satellite internet, according to a report this week from The Information. "Apple plans to add support in upcoming iPhones as early as next year for 5G networks that aren't tethered to Earth's surface, which includes satellites," the report said. "That would give the iPhone full internet access over satellite," it added. ...

• 56 comments

Top Rated Comments

wdfly

13 months ago

Give me more power over thinner and lighter any day.

Score: 51 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Trusteft

13 months ago

Why this obsession with thinner above all? With as few ports etc as possible?
I don't know, it feels like there are deeper issues here which manifest as this push for more and more thin and less and less...functional? I don't know. It feels weird.

Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)

neuropsychguy

13 months ago

“Compared to current MacBook Pro models with mini-LED screens, benefits of OLED technology would include increased brightness”

There are no commercially available OLED screens of the size and quality needed that will be brighter than what Apple is using now. I could be unaware of one, but I’ve looked. Maybe for much higher costs, if there is one. I know this is a rumor for future devices but if I wrote this article I’d hedge the “increased brightness” part. Maybe there will be brighter large OLED screens within the next 1.5 years (to make a late 2026 release deadline), but what’s getting released now (13” iPad Pro) is just matching the LEDs for brightness.

Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)