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Apple’s new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display is the first Mac you can touch, and Apple has lined up a list of named apps built to take advantage of it. The laptop starts at $2,899 for the 14-inch M5 Pro model and $3,399 for the 16-inch, with preorders open now and arrivals from Friday, November 6. The full app list is in Apple’s announcement, but one footnote changes how you should read it.
Notion, Canva, Zoom and the Microsoft Office apps lead the list of third-party touch apps
Apple grouped the third-party apps by the kind of work they do. Here’s the full named list:
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- Productivity and collaboration: Notion, Canva, Zoom, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
- Photo and video: Adobe Lightroom and DaVinci Resolve
- 3D and animation: Blender, Maxon Cinema 4D, Maxon ZBrush and Shapr3D
- Music: Algoriddim djay Pro
That’s a broad spread, from office documents and video calls to sculpting and DJ software. ZBrush and Shapr3D are an interesting pair, since both are tools where you shape things by hand, and both already have touch-first versions on iPad.
Apple says these apps arrive later this year, so most won’t be ready on day one
Here’s the footnote. Apple says the apps listed will be available later this year. In other words, the optimized touch versions of these apps aren’t promised for November 6 when the first machines arrive. Apple gave no dates for individual apps, so expect them to roll out over the coming weeks rather than all at once.
You won’t be stuck in the meantime. Apple says many existing apps work with touch right away because macOS translates touches into clicks. So you can tap buttons and menus in apps that haven’t been updated. You just won’t get the custom gestures and controls the named developers are building.
Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro get their own touch controls from Apple
Apple says its own apps are optimized for the new MacBook Pro, and it called out three Apple Creator Studio apps with specific touch features:
- Pixelmator Pro: drawing on the canvas and making selections with your finger
- Logic Pro: a Multi-Touch polyphonic keyboard and tappable pads, so you can play several notes at once on the screen
- Final Cut Pro: marking ranges, dropping clips and pinching to zoom in the timeline
Logic Pro’s keyboard is the most practical example here. If you sketch musical ideas on a plane or in a hotel room, playing chords on the display beats clicking notes in one at a time. Final Cut Pro’s pinch to zoom is the kind of small change you’ll likely use dozens of times per edit.
The release also shows other pro apps running on the new MacBook Pro, including Cinema 4D, MATLAB, Nuke, LM Studio and TouchDesigner, with Redshift, Blender and Unreal Engine named for GPU performance. Apple shows those for speed, though, and doesn’t list all of them as touch-optimized.
Developers get new gesture APIs and can test iOS and iPadOS apps on the display
For developers, Apple says it has updated its system gesture APIs so apps can offer experiences designed specifically for touch. That’s how the named apps above will go beyond simple tap-to-click.
Apple also says developers can test how touch performs in their iOS and iPadOS apps directly on the MacBook Pro display. That should help the many iPhone and iPad apps that already run on Apple silicon Macs, since developers can check touch behaviour on real Mac hardware.
Apple hadn’t posted a separate developer news item about Mac touch on developer.apple.com at the time of writing, so details such as the exact API names and the Xcode version needed weren’t public. We’ll update this when Apple publishes developer documentation.
Wait for your key apps if touch is the reason you want this MacBook Pro
If your daily work lives in Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro or Pixelmator Pro, you get Apple’s touch features with Apple’s own apps, and the case for buying now is strong. The same goes if you mostly need tap-to-click in apps you already own.
If you’re buying mainly for touch in Lightroom, DaVinci Resolve, Blender or Office, you’re relying on a “later this year” promise with no dates. The MacBook Pro is a strong machine without them, but if touch support in one of those apps is your deciding factor, it costs you nothing to wait until the update ships and see how well it works.
Where to buy the touchscreen MacBook Pro, and the cheaper MacBook Pro deals right now
Apple takes orders for the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display on its online store and in the Apple Store app, and it ships November 6. Amazon doesn’t list it yet. If you don’t need touch, Amazon has the M5 Pro and M5 Max models it sits beside for up to $610 off. See our MacBook Pro deals for every price we checked.
Need a faster charger for 50 percent in 30 minutes? Amazon sells Apple’s 96W USB-C Power Adapter for $79 and the 140W adapter for $99.
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