Apple's MacBook Ultra may not get an Ultra chip

Apple's first touchscreen MacBook is shaping up to be its most ambitious laptop yet—OLED screen, a fresh design, a Dynamic Island borrowed straight from the iPhone—but the chip inside might be the least exciting part of the package.

According to a Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman, the high-end model widely tipped to be called the "MacBook Ultra" will launch with Apple's current M5 Pro and M5 Max silicon, not the next-generation parts buyers might expect from a debut this significant.The device is on track to arrive between late this year and early 2027, available in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes, internally code-named K114 and K116. It marks Apple's first-ever touchscreen Mac, an idea the company spent years publicly dismissing.

It's also expected to cost more than the M5 Pro MacBook Pro, which already starts at $1,999 after Apple's recent price hikes.

So why ship a brand-new flagship with last year's chip

The answer ties back to a bigger shake-up in Apple's roadmap. Gurman reported a day earlier that Apple plans to skip the M6 Pro and M6 Max entirely. Instead, only a base M6—built on a 2nm process and aimed at entry-level Macs like a refreshed 14-inch MacBook Pro—arrives later this year. The higher-end tiers leapfrog straight to an M7 generation built around on-device AI.

That leaves an awkward gap. With no M6 Pro or M6 Max to slot in, the touchscreen MacBook either waits for the M7 or ships with what Apple already has. Apple picked the latter. Holding the flagship back a year to wait for M7 Pro and Max chips, due as late as the end of 2027, would mean walking away from months of sales.

What the M7 wait actually buys you

The M7 line is the one designed for serious AI work—upgraded neural accelerators, beefier graphics, and a jump in memory bandwidth from the M5's 153 GB/s toward roughly 240 GB/s on the base part.

Apple is already testing a follow-up touchscreen model running M7 Pro and M7 Max, reportedly planned for as early as the end of 2027.So early buyers get the design, the OLED panel, and the touchscreen first—but the chip that makes this lineup interesting on paper lands a year later. For anyone weighing a purchase, that's the real question: pay flagship money now, or hold out for the silicon Apple built this whole strategy around.