First details emerge of next year’s M5 MacBooks

The M5 MacBook range could arrive–or at least go into production–as early as next year, according to a new report from a respected source.

In a seemingly mundane and industry-focused Medium post, the analyst Ming-Chi Kuo writes about an upcoming change in Apple’s choice of camera partner: Sunny Optical, he says, “will become Apple’s new CCM [compact camera module] supplier in 2025” covering that year’s new MacBook range. So far, so humdrum. But the second half of the sentence contains a passing reference that will have Apple watchers perking up their ears:

“Sunny Optical will become Apple’s new CCM supplier in 2025, with mass production and shipments in Vietnam for the CCM of the new M5 series MacBook models.” [my emphasis]

Until now, most pundits (including Kuo himself) have predicted that MacBooks featuring M5-class Apple processors won’t arrive until 2026 at the earliest–after all, Apple currently sells MacBooks running M2 or M3 chips, so the M5 feels a long way off. A report about folding MacBooks from May of this year, for example, contained a comment from Kuo that the M5 chip is expected to ship in the second half of 2026.

But there have been hints from analysts that the cycle could be a little faster than that. In June Mark Gurman discussed the launch of the M4 MacBook Pro, and said it would arrive in late 2024 or early 2025. If the M4 does ship before the end of this year, it’s conceivable that the M5 will appear a year afterward and squeeze into the 2025 release slate. It’s also possible that Apple skips the M4 altogether and jumps straight to the M5 due to the out-of-sync timing of the M4.

What I think is more likely, given how uncharacteristic it would be for Kuo to reverse direction without acknowledging it, is that product development will simply stretch across two calendar years. Sunny Optical may be slated to begin work on the M5 MacBooks in 2025, but that doesn’t mean they will ship the same year. This does suggest, however, that early 2026 might come into play after all.