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Apple Kicks Off Touch on Mac Developer Resources with Videos and Labs

Source: Apple

Source: Apple

As part of the introduction of Touch on the OLED MacBook Pros today, Apple has begun rolling out resources for developers. Apple’s press release explains that many third-party apps will just work with Touch, but the company is also releasing updated system gesture APIs for developers who want to provide custom Touch experiences.

The videos offer a preview of what developers can do besides turning taps into clicks. Apps can let users manipulate multiple controls at once, while sliders and dials can expand into larger controls when touched. It’s an approach that preserves the familiar Mac interface while making it easier to use with your fingers.

Currently, there are three videos available to developers:

Apple has also scheduled two one-hour online developer group labs for November 18 and 19, which registered developers can sign up for. The same webpage lists Xcode 27.3 beta and documentation and design resources as coming soon.

Developers won’t need one of the new MacBook Pros to begin testing, either. Apple says in the Bring Touch to your Mac app video that its latest macOS beta and developer tools will let them test the new Touch features with an iPad connected to a Mac with Sidecar.

Based on the timing of the developer sessions, the footnotes from today’s MacBook Pro press release, and swinging a rubber chicken around my head, my prognostication is that macOS Golden Gate 27.3 will be released on November 24, two days before the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. That’s just a guess, but I think it’s a pretty good one. As for those of you who pick up a MacBook Pro before then, you’ll still be able to poke at your Apple apps and existing third-party apps.

Apple says these custom Touch implementations are coming later this year. The company describes the lineup in its press release:

a wide range of third-party apps that pros rely on every day will also take advantage of Touch on the new MacBook Pro, bringing new ways to interact with their favorite tools and workflows. These include everyday productivity and collaboration apps like Notion, Canva, Zoom, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook; powerful creative tools for photo and video editing like Adobe Lightroom and DaVinci Resolve; 3D modeling and animation apps like Blender, Maxon Cinema 4D, Maxon ZBrush, and Shapr3D; along with music apps like Algoriddim djay Pro.

That’s an impressive lineup, and from the press release and demos at today’s event, it looks as though Apple has managed to get some of the biggest players behind its efforts. As someone who spends a lot of time swiping around audio and video timelines, I can’t wait to see what this sort of editing workflow is like.

Also worth noting, macOS is adding an Accessibility setting that allows users who can’t or don’t want to touch their MacBook Pro’s screen to disable touch input.

Apple Brings Touch to the Mac with New OLED MacBook Pros

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple today introduced newly redesigned 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros featuring tandem OLED displays that support Touch. The new MacBook Pros, which are thinner and lighter than previous models, feature the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, both of which include a Neural Accelerator in each GPU core.

Apple is calling the laptop’s new display the PROLED XDR. The display supports up to 2000 nits of peak HDR and SDR brightness, a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and both P3 and Adobe RGB color.

John Ternus introduces the new MacBook Pro in L.A.

John Ternus introduces the new MacBook Pro in L.A.

Touch works alongside the trackpad and keyboard shortcuts as a new input method on the MacBook Pro. In demonstrations at the event in Los Angeles, Apple showed off full multitouch gestures that are the same as you’d use on the iPad. To accommodate the Touch hardware that is built into the MacBook Pro’s display, Apple designed a new, more stable hinge and added stabilization to the built-in 12MP Center Stage camera. Touch will come to Apple Creator Studio in November, along with the other updates to the suite that were announced yesterday. The MacBook Pro does not, however, support the Apple Pencil.

Apple says Touch will work with its own apps and many existing apps immediately, and that developers can use system gesture APIs to design custom Touch interactions. Among the Touch-enabled apps mentioned as coming later this year are Notion, Canva, Zoom, Microsoft’s productivity apps, and creator tools from Adobe and Blackmagic Design. Modeling, animation, and music apps are on the list, too.

The new MacBook Pro comes in M5 Pro and M5 Max configurations with up to 128GB of unified memory and up to 16TB of SSD storage. The displays, which feature a Dynamic Island, measure 14.2 and 16.3 inches diagonally and support adaptive ProMotion between 10Hz and 120Hz. As with the generation of MacBook Pros it replaces, the new models include an antireflective coating and can optionally be ordered with an etched nano-texture finish.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Other features of the new MacBook Pro include:

  • Wi-Fi 7
  • Bluetooth 6
  • HDMI
  • MagSafe
  • a headphone jack
  • three Thunderbolt 5 ports
  • an SDXC card slot
  • a six-speaker audio system

Apple has shaved about half a pound off the 14-inch model, which now weighs 3 pounds. The 16-inch MacBook Pro weighs a pound more at 4 pounds, which is 0.7 pounds less than before. New to both models is the return of the glowing Apple logo on the MacBook Pro’s lid. Apple’s press release claims 24 hours of battery life and a 50% charge in 30 minutes.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

The 14-inch M5 Pro model starts at $2,899, while the 16-inch version starts at $3,399. For the 14-inch M5 Max, the starting price is $4,499, and bumping up to the 16-inch model raises that to $4,799. Pre-orders are being taken now, with delivery starting November 6.

I’ve seen a few videos that Federico took of the MacBook Pro’s Touch interactions, and they look as natural as using a trackpad or an iPad. It’s not the input method that I’d expect myself to use most of the time, but direct manipulation of images and files is something that comes as second nature to a lot of folks. For example, every time my wife uses our family MacBook Air, she reaches out to touch the screen because she’s primarily an iPhone user. Nearly 20 years into touch interfaces, there are more people like her than keyboard jockeys like me, and I think they’ll love this new laptop.

Apple Creator Studio to Add MotionVFX, AI Assistants, and MCP Support in November

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

In November, Apple Creator Studio will get its biggest update since its release in January. There’s a lot here, so let’s break it down by app.

Final Cut Pro and Motion

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Back in March, Apple acquired MotionVFX, a highly regarded plug-in maker for Final Cut Pro. The upcoming update to Final Cut Pro will bring MotionVFX’s tools directly into the app for the first time. According to Apple’s press release, the update adds thousands of new elements to Final Cut Pro “including templates with unique themes, stylish graphics, titles, and transitions, as well as tools for rotoscoping, tracking, and color grading.” That will add a lot of value to Final Cut Pro that creators historically paid for separately. The update also adds new content to the suite’s Content Hub like stock videos, images, and backgrounds.

Final Cut Pro will also be integrated more tightly with Pixelmator Pro, allowing images in a video timeline to be edited in Pixelmator Pro without exporting and reimporting the image. The update also includes finer control over animation and 23 new transcription languages for captioning video.

Motion will also gain MotionVFX plug-ins, integration with Pixelmator Pro, and more.

Pixelmator Pro

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

A new Generate Fill feature will be added to Pixelmator Pro. Users circle where they want an edit or use one of the app’s selection tools, describe it, and the app generates the edit. Generated elements will also work with the existing Super Resolution tool and can be merged into a layer or be inserted as a separate layer.

Logic Pro

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Logic Pro is getting a Liquid Glass redesign, which looks great in Apple’s press release images. For musicians, there will be a new beta chatbot assistant on the Mac that uses Apple and OpenAI models. The app’s Browser is being updated on the Mac, too. It will consolidate loops, instruments, and more, organizing them using music understanding to make finding what you want easier. In addition, Logic’s Stem Splitter will gain the ability to separate drums, and a new Producer Pack from Grammy-winning salsa producer Sergio George is coming too.

Keynote, Pages, and Numbers

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

All three productivity tools will add a beta AI assistant powered by Apple and OpenAI models. Assistants understand the context of documents, helping build slides, write documents, and refine spreadsheets. The apps will also add MCP support on the Mac, allowing users to connect them to external AI agents for the first time. Content Hub will also add stock video footage that can be used in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, and Keynote will gain a new Keynote Interchange Format that is based on JSON, which should make it more accessible to AI workflows.

Freeform

Freeform will add text styles that can be applied in one step across multiple boards, along with custom and preset background colors. Then in December, Freeform will integrate with Pixelmator Pro for image editing.

I’m glad to see MotionVFX coming to Creator Studio. I also appreciate that an MCP server will be added to Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, something that is sorely missing compared to similar apps from companies like Google. I’m intrigued by the AI assistants coming to Logic Pro, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, too. I’ve used Codex a lot to help me learn new tricks in those apps and having an assistant like Codex built in has the potential to reduce the distraction of switching between apps.

Existing subscribers will have access to these new features beginning in November. Creator Studio, which supports Family Sharing, is $12.99/month or $129/year, with a one-month free trial or three months free when you buy a new Mac or qualifying iPad. College students and educators can get it for $2.99/month or $29.99/year.

Apple Updates the Entry-Level 14-Inch MacBook Pro with the M6

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple also introduced a new 14-inch MacBook Pro today featuring the M6 chipset.

This entry-level MacBook Pro retains the design of the current M5 MacBook Pros, so the changes are all under the hood. Starting at $1,999, the updated MacBook Pro bumps the chipset from M5 to M6, with two additional CPU and GPU cores.

The M6 MacBook Pro’s baseline configuration includes 16GB of unified memory and 1TB of SSD storage, which can be upgraded to as high as 32GB of memory and 4TB of storage. Like the M6 iMac, the new MacBook Pro can sustain up to 170GB/s of memory bandwidth if you buy the 24 or 32GB configurations, which facilitates things like LLM token processing. The 16GB model has 153GB/s of memory throughput.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple is rumored to be introducing the first touchscreen OLED MacBook Pros tomorrow, but for this entry-level MacBook, the screen is a Liquid Retina XDR non-OLED display. It’s still a great display with up to 1600 nits of peak brightness and an optional nano-texture treatment that I personally love, but check back here tomorrow if you’re waiting on OLED.

The updated MacBook Pro also features a 12MP Center Stage camera, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, three Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI port, MagSafe 3, an SDXC card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Apple also says the M6 MacBook Pro can last up to 24 hours on a single battery charge, and can charge to 50% in just 30 minutes when you use Apple’s 96W power adapter instead of the 70W adapter that’s in the box.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

As for speed, Apple says the M6 MacBook Pro is 30% faster on graphics workloads and 25% faster on on-device AI tasks than the M5 model. The Neural Engine is also 1.9x faster than the M5.

Overall, this is a very straightforward update to the existing entry-level MacBook Pro. That’s not terribly exciting for those who want to live at the bleeding edge of Apple hardware, but it’s a great way to get a fast laptop with a fantastic display. We’ll have to wait to see how it performs in practice, but with its active cooling, the new M6 MacBook Pro should be a very capable laptop.

The M6 MacBook Pro will be available for preorder starting tomorrow, October 28, with deliveries beginning November 6.

Apple Updates the iMac with the M6, Starting at $1,499

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple’s daily hardware drops continued today with a refresh to the iMac. The new iMac upgrades from an M4 to an M6 chip, with the base model starting at $1,499 and available in blue, green, pink, yellow, purple, orange, and silver. There are two M6 configurations. The first has a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU, and the second has a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU, with the option of a nano-texture display. Memory starts at 16GB with a 24GB option for the 10-core iMac and an additional 32GB option for the 12-core model. All memory options feature 170GB/s bandwidth. Storage starts at 256GB and can be configured as high as 2TB on the 12-core model.

The new iMac also includes Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and two or four Thunderbolt 4 ports depending on the model you choose. There is also an option for 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet on the 12-core iMac, up from 1 Gigabit on the M4 iMac. As in the past, the Magic Keyboard is color-matched with the iMac

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

The display, which measures 23.5 inches diagonally, has a resolution of 4.5K with 500 nits of brightness and P3 wide color support. You can also connect up to two external 6K displays to the M6 iMac.

The new iMac also includes a 12MP Center Stage camera that supports Desk View for simulated top-down video, a pair of force-cancelling woofers, and two tweeters. Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos audio are supported and a three-microphone array is built into the iMac, too.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

According to Apple, the new iMac is 18x faster than Apple’s most popular Intel-based iMac, which is not surprising given how long it’s been since the introduction of Apple silicon. That said, I’m sure that a lot of households and businesses are still running those aging Intel iMacs and would benefit greatly from this update.

Apple also says that the graphics performance is 3.3x better than an M1 iMac and 2x better than the most recent M4 model. On-device AI prompt processing in LM Studio is also 12x faster than the M1 iMac and 5x faster than the M4 model.

The M6 has already proven to be a very capable addition to Apple silicon and will undoubtedly make this the best iMac yet. It’s an excellent choice for anyone who wants an elegant, space-saving Mac and doesn’t need the horsepower of Apple’s pro line of Macs.

The M6 iMac is available for preorder starting tomorrow with deliveries beginning November 6.

Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 27.2 with Apple Pencil Support for iPhone Duo and Smarter Siri

The iPhone Duo now supports the Apple Pencil (USB-C).

The iPhone Duo now supports the Apple Pencil (USB-C).

It’s been just six weeks since iOS and iPadOS 27 were released, but Apple just introduced version 27.2, which packs a surprisingly long list of new features, some of which were first announced back in June at WWDC, while others support the iPhone Duo. Let’s take a look at the highlights.

The iPhone Duo already has a couple of great updates. The first is support for the Apple Pencil (USB-C). That’s the model that reveals a USB-C port when you pull on the end of it. I played around with the Duo’s Apple Pencil support over the weekend and think a lot of people are going to love it. The Duo feels so much like a tiny notebook already that writing with the Pencil is very natural whether you’re using Apple’s Notes or Freeform, or one of the many new skeuomorphic note-taking apps that have been released for the Duo.

Excluding apps from Siri AI.

Excluding apps from Siri AI.

The Duo also gained support for Edge Light, which frames your Duo’s screen in a faux ring light, illuminating your face when you’re on a video call or filming yourself with the front-facing camera.

One of the limitations of the initial beta release of Siri AI was its lack of access to past conversations. With iOS and iPadOS 27.2, Siri can recall past conversations (English only), which is great, especially if you use Siri a lot. Siri has added new data sources too, like images attached in the Messages app, voicemail, and Calendar event attendees, along with better browsing history and Reading List results. Siri AI has also added a centralized setting for excluding apps from its results, along with beta support for French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Recalling past Siri conversations.

Recalling past Siri conversations.

FaceTime has added new features too. Dual Capture, which streams the front and rear cameras of recent iPhones at the same time, now works in Group FaceTime calls. Third-party sign language interpreters or live captioners can be added to a call too, an accessibility feature that I first saw demoed back in May.

Messages has added suggested actions, like adding an event to Calendar, that draw on the context of your conversation. The feature showed up over the summer during the public beta but didn’t make the final release of iOS 27. It’s not a feature I use a lot, but for quickly capturing information in other apps when you’re pressed for time, it can really be handy.

Other iOS and iPadOS 27.2 updates include:

  • Shared Albums in Photos include reminders before they expire, so you can save photos and videos before the deadline. The feature also adds caption and comment editing.
  • Podcasts’ Up Next section has been organized into New Episodes and Continue Playing, to help differentiate active from untouched episodes.
  • Games has added context on friend suggestions and now shows what friends are playing on their player pages.
  • Apple TV’s Multiview has expanded to the iPhone, allowing you to watch four Apple TV sporting events at once, an especially nice option for the iPhone Duo.

Of these, I expect that I’ll use the Apple Pencil support for the iPhone Duo and Apple Podcasts’ Up Next categories the most, but given the variety of the release, I suspect there’s a little something for most users here.

Today’s updates are available by navigating to Settings > General > Software Update.

Today on AppStories: iPhone Duo First Impressions and Apps→

Today on AppStories, Federico and I share our first impressions of the iPhone Duo and share our experiences in New York and London, where we learned more about the Duo and met with developers for demos and conversations about their apps. It’s an excellent episode and just the start of a lot of iPhone Duo coverage we have planned for the coming weeks.

Preorder chaos, lines at Apple Stores, strong opinions for and against the Duo, and of course, a huge number of new apps tailored to the device all point to one thing: This is Apple’s most interesting devices in a while. There’s a lot to take in and this episode of AppStories is just the start. We’ll have more on the Duo hardware soon, as well as ongoing coverage of the over 500 Duo apps we’re working our way through. So keep an eye out for more on MacStories this week and in the coming weeks.

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The New iPad mini Adds OLED with a Larger 8.5-Inch Display

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple today announced an update to the iPad mini, one of my favorite iPads. The new mini features an 8.5-inch OLED display, a landscape Center Stage camera, and many other updates throughout. This is a big update, so let’s dig into the details.

The revised iPad mini has a similar, but slightly smaller, overall footprint at 5.4mm thin, but the bezels around the screen are 24% thinner, allowing for the larger 8.5-inch Super Retina XDR screen. That enables a peak brightness of 1200 nits with 600 nits full-screen brightness, which is brigher than the model it replaces. The display is also capable of as little as 1 nit of brightness, supports P3 wide color, and can be ordered with an optional nano-texture finish on the 256GB and 512GB models. However, the new mini’s display is not a 120Hz ProMotion display.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

The chip that drives the new mini is from the A20 Pro line, which is the same chip family that powers the iPhone 18 Pro. The mini also has an N1 networking chip that supports Wi-Fi 7 and a C2 modem chip for users who order the cellular model. The mini also features up to six CPU cores, a 7-core GPU with Neural Accelerators for each core, and a Dual 16-core Neural Engine in the 512GB model.

The 12MP Center Stage front-facing camera is on the long edge of the iPad mini. The rear camera is a 12MP Wide camera that includes Smart HDR 4 and Adaptive True Tone flash and can shoot 4K video at up to 60 fps.

Other details include IP67 water and dust resistance, a new TechWoven Smart Folio case, and continued support for both the Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil (USB-C).

Among Apple’s speed claims are:

  • up to 4.5x faster AI performance,
  • up to 2.7x faster graphics performance,
  • up to 60% faster multithreaded CPU performance,
  • 2x Neural Engine processing power on the 512GB model,
  • more than a 2x increase in unified memory bandwidth,
  • up to 50% faster cellular data speeds, and
  • more than 2x higher peak brightness.

The new iPad mini comes in Midnight and Starlight colors (fewer than before) and starts at $699, which is less than some rumors suggested, and can be configured up to $1,249 before accessories. Apple also packs a polishing cloth in the box for the polishing fans out there.

This looks like an excellent update. I’m a huge fan of the iPad mini for writing, other lightweight productivity tasks, reading, watching videos, and playing games. Based on the specs, the new mini should be more capable than ever. I’m looking forward to trying it myself.

Goodnotes: Take Your Architectural Ideas from Desk to Job Site [Sponsor]

Goodnotes architectural plans, site photos, and annotations on iPad and iPhone

Goodnotes architectural plans, site photos, and annotations on iPad and iPhone

Many architects still think best with a pencil in hand. A floor plan starts as a sketch, an elevation changes after a client meeting, and tricky details get worked out during site visits. Goodnotes gives architects the freedom of pencil and paper, with every project on one device.

Begin a floor plan or elevation on a grid template, or import an existing drawing and mark it up with your Apple Pencil. The page scrolls without changing scale, so you can work on a large drawing that will still fit on your iPad. Adjust the pencil’s line weight as you go, and double-tap Apple Pencil to switch between drawing and erasing.

Then, when a design changes, you can continue without missing a beat. Simply select a wall and drag it somewhere else instead of redrawing the whole page. That makes it incredibly easy to try different layouts before committing to them.

Goodnotes keeps all of the context behind those decisions in the same place, too. Add photos from the job site right next to your plans, circle the area that needs attention, and jot down what happens next. With drawings, photos, and handwritten notes all on one page, it’s easy to return to a project later and understand its history and evolution.

When it’s time to work on site, Goodnotes also means you can leave rolls of plans behind. Every project lives on your device, and Goodnotes works offline, which is key to working on the go. Once you’re connected again, all of your changes sync across iPad, desktop, and the web, so the office, your clients, and the construction site can all work from the latest version of your plans.

The same workflow carries through the entire build. Engineers use Goodnotes to work up calculations on reusable templates and mark up details live in meetings, while site teams keep blueprints, annotated photos, and daily logs together and synced for those back in the office.

To see the workflow in action, watch architect Steve Giannetti sketch a house in Goodnotes:

Give your next project room to grow, from the first pencil stroke to the last site visit. Try Goodnotes for free.

Our thanks to Goodnotes for sponsoring MacStories this week.