Apple’s fall lineup goes M5: MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and Vision Pro — GPU takes center stage
Apple has announced a fall refresh across several flagship products powered by its new M5 chip: a 14-inch MacBook Pro, a refreshed iPad Pro, and an updated Vision Pro headset. Early reports and coverage from tech outlets suggest the headline improvement is the M5’s GPU upgrades — delivering higher graphics performance aimed at creative professionals and AR/VR workloads.
Key points:
- Devices announced: 14″ MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, Vision Pro — all updated with the M5 chip.
- Main upgrade: significant GPU improvements in the M5 family, which Apple is emphasizing for pro graphics, video, and spatial computing tasks.
- Who benefits: users working in pro creative apps, 3D workflows, and developers building for AR/VR platforms.
Beyond raw specs, the M5’s GPU focus indicates Apple is continuing to push its silicon toward workloads that historically required discrete GPUs, making ambitious graphics and real-time rendering more feasible on portable devices. Early hands-on conversations (and the latest podcast coverage) point to meaningful gains in performance-per-watt — a recurring theme for Apple silicon.
Other highlights from the same episode and coverage:
- Sam Rutherford’s review of the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X — Microsoft’s push into a portable Xbox form factor was discussed in depth.
- Microsoft’s Copilot Voice ambitions and whether the company can deliver on its promises.
- OpenAI’s Sora app hitting 1M downloads in under five days, and a controversial comment from Sam Altman about ChatGPT later this year.
If you want to read the original coverage, see this article on Engadget for more context: Engadget coverage of the episode.
What this means: if Apple’s M5 truly boosts GPU performance as advertised, users who rely on graphics-intensive apps could see noticeable improvements without needing bigger, heavier hardware. That could shift the landscape for mobile pro hardware and AR/VR content creation.
Discussion: Will you consider upgrading to an M5 device for GPU gains, or will you wait for real-world benchmarks? Share your thoughts below.