Blogroll

Your Windows 11 PC has 4 built-in tools that do what every optimizer app promises

How-To Geek - 40 min 11 sec ago

When your PC starts to lag, it is normal to start searching the web for solutions only to be met with a deluge of apps that promise to "speed up your PC" and "optimize Windows" with a single click.

Categories: IT General, Technology

The 3 Ryobi tools I regret buying the most

How-To Geek - 1 hour 10 min ago

Ryobi's 18V and 40V tools are extremely popular with homeowners and DIYers, and for good reason. I'm a huge fan myself and have been buying Ryobi tools for more than 20 years. However, not every tool is a winner, and there are a few Ryobi tools I regret buying. If you're wandering through Home Depot, here are a few to avoid and what to buy instead.

Categories: IT General, Technology

3 reasons every driver should try Google Maps' new Immersive Navigation (and 1 reason to avoid it)

How-To Geek - 1 hour 40 min ago

There’s something ridiculous about how much I trust Google Maps while driving. I’ll be in an unfamiliar part of town, approaching a road I’ve never seen before, and somehow I’m expected to believe a tiny blue arrow knows exactly where I should go. Most of the time, I just follow it and hope I don’t end up making a last-second turn.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Samsung Galaxy S27 tier prices reportedly leaked. See the list.

Mashable - 1 hour 55 min ago

Samsung's next batch of flagship phones now has a tentative price tag.

A leaker on X going by @phonefuturist (cited by AndroidHeadlines) posted starting prices for the four phones that are currently expected to make up the Galaxy S27 lineup. These would be the base S27, the S27+, the new S27 Pro, and the S27 Ultra, for the uninitiated. The prices are as follows:

  • Galaxy S27: $899

  • Galaxy S27+: $1,099

  • Galaxy S27 Pro: $1,299

  • Galaxy S27 Ultra: $1,399

SEE ALSO: Here we go again: Samsung raises Galaxy S26 smartphone prices This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

It should be noted that this information is not coming from Samsung directly and should be taken with a grain of salt. Even if the prices are real at this point in time, they are also subject to change before the phones launch early next year. The global memory crisis is still ongoing, and a lot could change in just a few months.

That said, there are some interesting insights here. First, the S27 and S27+ are said to be $100 cheaper than the S26 equivalents currently cost. Samsung recently jacked up the prices on the 2026 models by $100, so if the leaked prices for the S27 lineup are true, that price increase will not necessarily carry forward to the new phones at launch.

However, the S27 Ultra's reported $1,399 price is consistent with the recent price increase of the S26 Ultra. It seems like the S26 Pro, which is a new device, will slot in between the S27+ and S27 Ultra as a slightly more affordable premium flagship phone. AndroidHeadlines noted that the display specs shared in the X post indicate the S27 and S27+ will not necessarily be true flagships compared to the S27 Pro and Ultra, but we'll have to wait until closer to launch to learn exactly how true that is.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Acer's 31.5-inch Nitro Gaming monitor is 61% off at Best Buy

How-To Geek - 2 hours 2 min ago

Best Buy is in the middle of its own fall savings event right now, as its Techtober sale is starting off strong. For the gamer, the one product that jumps off the screen is this impressive Acer Nitro Gaming curved monitor—the ideal choice for those looking to up their experience with a bigger screen. With a discount of $280, it's one you'll definitely want to take advantage of before it's too late.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Feminist orgs claim Meta censoring posts about Cornell 7 case

Mashable - 2 hours 3 min ago

The civil lawsuit claiming that Jane Doe was drugged and raped by seven Chi Phi fraternity members at Cornell University has caused an eruption of content on social media, from the "I am Jane Doe" campaign to help conceal the woman's identity to celebrities like Florence Pugh posting about the allegations.

Now, a coalition of feminist and tech justice organizations claim Meta is censoring content about the case.

SEE ALSO: New York’s ‘voluntary intoxication loophole’: The legal gap at the center of the 'Cornell 7' case.

"We're in the midst of a classic censorship cycle designed to silence survivor voices," said Jenna Sherman, campaign director at women-led gender-justice organization UltraViolet, in a press release shared with Mashable. "First, Cornell tried to cover up this horrific case. Then, legacy media ignored it."

Jane Doe's lawsuit brings several claims against the university, including negligence and negligent supervision. Student journalists at The Cornell Daily Sun are credited with amplifying the story.

"Now, after Jane Doe and brave student journalists finally brought this story to light, Meta appears to be censoring content about the case across its platforms," Sherman continued.

Shortly after Pugh posted a statement in support of Jane Doe, she said Instagram placed a "sensitive-content" warning on her post, which prevented some people from seeing it and scrolling through the carousel. "Am I being censored for talking about rape?" she asked. Meta confirmed to TMZ that it initially placed the warning on the post, but has since lifted it.

But the coalition states that even a second post about the case was covered by the same label. "Pugh is one of many users claiming that their posts are being censored, labeled, or shadowbanned by Instagram, Facebook, and Threads," they wrote.

UltraViolet, as well as other gender justice, tech accountability, and pro-democracy organizations, have launched a joint campaign in response. In a petition with over 29,000 signatures at the time of this writing, they call on Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri to stop censoring posts about the Cornell case.

"Meta has no business making it difficult for users — and particularly women users — to engage in these conversations. Blocking this content sends a dangerous signal that sounding the alarm on rape culture is worse than rape itself," the ActionNetwork petition reads. "It feels blatantly obvious that women’s safety is not actually Meta's priority, but that silencing us is."

In addition to UltraViolet, the full coalition includes Democracy for America Advocacy Fund, Kairos Fellowship, National Campaign for Justice, National Organization for Women (NOW), National Women's Defense League (NWDL), Reckoning Action, ReproAction, Repro Uncensored, Safe Horizon, Sexual Violence Prevention Association (SVPA), TakeItBack.Org, The Juggernaut Project, and Women's March.

In addition to signing the petition, the coalition encourages people to report post takedowns and flags to the nonprofit Repro Uncensored (RU), which tracks instances of post and account removal. RU founder and executive director, Martha Dimitratou, said the reports RU is receiving are deeply concerning and expose harms to freedom of speech and democracy.

"These reports reflect a wider pattern documented by Repro Uncensored in thousands of digital censorship cases across more than 50 countries affecting feminist advocacy, reproductive health information, and communities facing discrimination, with critical information removed, accounts disabled and advocates left without clear explanations or meaningful appeals," she said. Mashable reported on these instances in May.

"When social media platforms bury conversations about sexual violence, they don’t just limit speech; they help create the silence in which rape culture thrives," NOW president Kim Villanueva stated in a press release.

Mashable has reached out to Meta for comment.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Amazon Leo is on track to launch its satellite internet service in 2026

How-To Geek - 2 hours 29 min ago

Previously, How-To Geek reported that Amazon’s ambitions in low-Earth orbit extended beyond traditional home broadband toward direct-to-device satellite connectivity. While satellite phone connectivity is still far away, Amazon is getting ready to launch its satellite internet service later this year.

Categories: IT General, Technology

3 award-winning Netflix movies to watch this weekend (October 9-11)

How-To Geek - 2 hours 40 min ago

Netflix has an extensive collection of award-winning movies, and some of its best picks are also great for a relaxed weekend watch. From a sweeping wartime romance to a hip-hop underdog story, these films offer very different reasons to settle in for your movie night.

Categories: IT General, Technology

3 unusual data sources you can use to build a "second brain" in Obsidian

How-To Geek - 3 hours 10 min ago

Building a comprehensive Obsidian Knowledge Base has become a discipline for me lately. I already use several different methods to build it. Some of them are pretty standard, like using the web importer plugin. Others are a bit more unexpected. And I do a great deal of it without touching the editor for the most part. But I wanted to go further. So I found a few rather unconventional sources to use to continue building my "second brain".

Categories: IT General, Technology

Your Android's storage problem might be Chrome, and the fix is simpler than you think

How-To Geek - 3 hours 40 min ago

If you’re running out of storage on your Android, there's a good chance Chrome might be the silent culprit. While the app’s base size is roughly 150MB to 275MB, its storage footprint can grow significantly as your browser accumulates Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), offline media caches, and persistent web data over time. In my case, this was the reason for my browser having around 6GB of storage on my phone.

Categories: IT General, Technology

The PC market just crashed as unsold systems pile up

How-To Geek - 3 hours 40 min ago

The PC market was already rough, but it just got worse. IDC estimates that PC shipments plunged 20.1% year-over-year in the summer (third quarter) this year, and that the situation isn't likely to get better any time soon.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Sony sells hundreds of VR patents to Meta

Mashable - 3 hours 42 min ago

It's easy to forget that Sony launched a fancy, expensive VR headset for PlayStation 5 just a few years ago. It's seemingly only going to get easier going forward.

That's because Sony just sold 419 VR-and-XR-related patents to Meta, per a report from ZDNet Korea. 43 of those were filed in the United States alone, and they include patents for things like head-mounted displays.

It's unclear what exactly this means for Sony's future VR efforts, but doing this just three and a half years after the launch of PlayStation VR 2 (amidst product shortages, per GamesRadar) suggests that the company isn't especially interested in making another headset anytime soon. It should be noted that PSVR2 has not been officially discontinued, even if it has been difficult to find in stock recently.

SEE ALSO: Meta brings Muse to iPad with new tools for small businesses

This isn't terribly surprising, even if it is a bit of a bummer for those who value high-end console VR experiences. The PSVR2 headset was hailed as an excellent piece of hardware by Mashable and other outlets when it launched in 2023, but a critical lack of software support over the years has made it feel like a dead platform, even if it technically isn't one at the time of publication.

On Meta's side of things, acquiring several hundred VR patents is interesting given the company's recent up-and-down relationship with the technology. Earlier this year, Meta laid off more than 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division and shut down the VR portion of its Horizon Worlds app. However, the company also just announced VR glasses, a new product category, so it seems like Mark Zuckerberg's VR ambitions haven't died just yet. This latest development is another point of evidence in that direction.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Hurricane Isaias: See Gulf Coast webcams live, including Pensacola, Florida

Mashable - 3 hours 46 min ago

Hurricane Isaias is making its way toward landfall on the Gulf Coast late tonight or early Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.

The storm strengthened to Category 3 on Friday morning as it continued to push its way toward shore, the National Hurricane Center confirmed.

Spaghetti models predict the storm to make landfall somewhere between Gulf Shores, Alabama and Fort Walton Beach, Florida, according to storm tracking site Cyclocane. Spaghetti models are collections of storm-tracking forecasts that plot the storm's path and are overlaid on a map to provide a rough consensus on its track. It's important to realize that, regardless of where the storm makes landfall, Hurricane Isaias is a large storm with hurricane-force winds extending up to 30 miles and tropical-storm-force winds extending up to 185 miles, according to the 8 a.m. ET NHC forecast.

As the storm pushes in toward land, Hurricane Isaias' arrival can be watched in real-time via cams along the Gulf Coast. We've gathered a collection of webcams that are livestreaming now.

Pensacola, Florida webcams

The YouTube channel Florida Traffic, which sources its camera feeds from the Florida Department of Transportation, has a livestream showing road conditions in Pensacola as Hurricane Isaias approaches.

Another YouTube channel, the Santa Rosa Island Authority, has three cameras pointed along the beach in Santa Rosa Island, located between Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach.

Fort Walton Beach webcams

The Wyndham Garden Fort Walton Beach hotel's YouTube channel features a view of Okaloosa Island in the Pensacola area as the storm rolls in.

Gulf Shores, Alabama beach webcams

The Beach Club Resort & Spa's YouTube channel offers an elevated live view of Gulf Shores.

Biloxi, Mississippi beach webcams

The City of Biloxi YouTube channel features a webcam from the top of the city's lighthouse. It provides a view of the beach and the road that runs along it.

This story will be updated as more livestreams become available.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Upgrade your storage with $70 off Lexar's 1TB SSD

How-To Geek - 4 hours 2 min ago

You can never have enough storage space on your desktop, and adding an SSD like Lexar's NQ780 can help back up your movie and music collection, as well as important documents like your ID or birth certificate. It can also be a fast, reliable replacement if your current drive starts having issues.

Categories: IT General, Technology

You don't need Arch for cutting-edge Linux: These 5 distros do it without the frustration

How-To Geek - 4 hours 10 min ago

The appeal of Arch is obvious: you get the latest and greatest within days of their release. However, Arch also has a reputation for being difficult to install and requiring constant upkeep.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Other Mommy parents guide: Is your kid ready for this child-centered horror movie?

Mashable - 4 hours 18 min ago

Other Mommy crept into the public consciousness over the summer with a scary trailer playing ahead of The Odyssey in theaters nationwide.

From the title and the bit of body horror teased in that clip alone, many grown-ups saw similarities to Coraline, in which a little girl battles with a deformed doppelgänger of her own mother. But before you think this means Other Mommy would be a good pick for a spooky season night out with your scary-story-loving kid, let's break down what you might want to know first. 

Light spoilers ahead for Other Mommy. 

What's Other Mommy about?  Credit: Universal Pictures

Based on Josh Malerman's New York Times best-selling novel Incidents Around the House, Other Mommy centers on Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark), a 7-year-old girl who has been talking to an entity she calls "other mommy." As you might guess, Other Mommy (Jessica Chastain) looks a lot like Bela's real mommy, Ursula (also Jessica Chastain). This makes for several troubling sequences where Bela isn't sure if she's talking to her mom or the entity. 

When Ursula and Bela's dad, Russ (Jay Duplass), become aware of Other Mommy and her magical ability to kidnap their daughter to far-off locations in the blink of an eye, they try desperately to stop it. But along the way, there will be casualties and lots of jump scares. 

A special warning to families of divorce:  Credit: Universal Pictures

Other Mommy might be especially troubling to your children. Part of the power Other Mommy has in the film comes from Bela's fear that her parents' might split up.

While she's very close with her stay-at-home father, Daddo (as she calls Russ), Bela views her mother with a suspicion that Ursula would rather be anywhere else than in their home. This divide between daughter and mother is how Other Mother becomes such a compelling temptation. She's never too tired to play. She always smiles. She gives Bela whatever she asks for. Of course, what she wants in exchange is a hefty price to pay, as teased in the trailer. 

How scary is Other Mommy?  Credit: Universal Pictures

Fairly scary! For one thing, the jump scare that had Odyssey audiences gagged happens before the film's opening title card!

Director Rob Savage has made a name in horror with two terrific movies (Host, The Boogeyman) that make great use of jump scares. (He also made the abysmal and totally-worth-skipping Dashcam. So, don't let a spooky season marathon lead you there.)

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Savage estimated Other Mommy has "oh, like 50" jump scares in its 93-minute runtime. By my count, that's an exaggeration. However, I am a full-grown adult who did jump and scream loudly multiple times in this movie. It's fun and frightening, no doubt.

Much of the scares are centered around the eponymous entity, who, beyond being able to look like a creepshow version of Jessica Chastain, can shape-shift into other freaky forms too. And when Other Mommy gets mad, the violence she enacts involves some brutal violence, blood, and guts glitter. 

What rating is Other Mommy?

This movie is rated R for cursing (yes, the f-word included), violence, and gore. 

There are also sequences where young Bela is confronted with some hard truths about her parents. 

How does Other Mommy compare to Coraline?  Credit: Universal Pictures

Both focus on a little girl with a sharp bob who develops a relationship with an otherworldly double of her own mother. Each film is grounded in that girl's perspective, regarding the doppelgänger with a mix of awe and terror. In both, doorways possess magic to hide and connect the child and the other maternal figure. Both movies have scary bits where the young heroine is put at risk. Both are pretty scary for adults, and for kids more so. 

For what it's worth, I once asked Coraline director Henry Selick how old he thought someone should be before watching his adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book. He said, "At least 12." 

So, here's what I'll say: If your kid isn't ready for Coraline, they're not ready for Other Mommy.

Even if the swearing doesn't bother you and blood doesn't tend to spook your spawn, Other Mommy takes these scares to a more intense level. Being live-action, there's a greater horror in seeing the grown-ups around Bela be unraveled by Other Mommy, in very graphically violent ways. And beyond that, the idea that an evil entity can look like a parent might well leave your kid spooked by you after the credits roll. 

How old should a kid be to see Other Mommy?  Credit: Universal Pictures

Generally, I'd say in their teens, but with the caveat that you know your kid better than I do.

I will warn, when I was 11 or 12, I would have done whatever I needed to do to see a movie like Other Mommy — and I did. I watched slashers and Tim Curry's IT, and every Child's Play movie I could find when my parents weren't looking. And I suspect curious kids who love horror will make Other Mommy a sleepover staple before long. So, even if you don't choose to take your kid to see this, maybe this article will help you understand why they're so spooked if they found it on their own.

The Other Mother is now in theaters. 

Categories: IT General, Technology

Avatar: The Last Airbender reveals fourth series, this one based on Avatar Kuruk

Mashable - 4 hours 25 min ago

A fourth Avatar animated series is on the way, Avatar: The Last Airbender co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko revealed at New York Comic Con.

The announcement came as part of NYCC's Avatar: Seven Havens panel. The third series in the animated Avatar franchise, Seven Havens follows the adventures of Korra's earthbending successor and has just been renewed for Seasons 3 and 4.

SEE ALSO: 'Avatar: Seven Havens' review: The Avatar apocalypse is a bold, brilliant addition to the franchise

The next Avatar series is titled Avatar Kuruk: Wave of Chaos. Instead of continuing the Avatar cycle after Seven Havens' Pavi (voiced by Saheli Khan), it will head back in time to the waterbender from the Northern Water Tribe who preceded Kyoshi, Roku, and Aang.

Kuruk has previously appeared in prior Avatar series, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Plus, novels about avatars Kysohi and Yangchen reveal details about his life. He's most well-known for clashing with face-stealing spirit Koh, who stole away Kuruk's fiancée, Ummi. However, the series won't follow that story.

Instead, it introduces a rebellious 14-year-old Kuruk. According to the series logline, Kuruk "bucks thousands of years of tradition by choosing to learn the four elements through globetrotting adventures, staying one step ahead of his angry teacher, rowdy pirates, and chaotic spirits — all while helping the world in his own unique ways."

Konietzko serves as showrunner, and Janet Varney, the original voice of Korra, will be the show's voice director.

According Konietzko, the series is "not tragic and violent and dark" as leaks have suggested. Instead, he described it as "our first action comedy."

Check out first looks at art from Avatar Kuruk: Wave of Chaos below, including Kuruk waterbending and surfing, as well as his adorable koalaotter, Nikik.

Credit: Paramount+ Credit: Paramount+ Credit: Paramount+ Credit: Paramount+ Credit: Paramount+ Credit: Paramount+

Rounding out the Avatar: Seven Havens panel were announcements about Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game and podcast Avatar: Braving the Elements. The former will soon incorporate Seven Havens colorways and a stage based on Sonam's temple from Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender. Episodes of the latter will soon feature interviews with the cast and creators of Seven Havens.

Avatar: Seven Havens is now streaming on Paramount+. Avatar Kuruk: Wave of Chaos will premiere at a later date.

UPDATE: Oct. 9, 2026, 12:31 p.m. EDT This story has been updated to include further news out of NYCC.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Avatar: Seven Havens renewed for Seasons 3 and 4 on Paramount+

Mashable - 4 hours 25 min ago

Today is a big day for Avatar: Seven Havens.

SEE ALSO: 'Avatar: Seven Havens' review: The Avatar apocalypse is a bold, brilliant addition to the franchise

The latest Avatar series just premiered on Paramount+, and it's already been renewed for Seasons 3 and 4. The announcement came at Avatar: Seven Havens' New York Comic Con panel, which featured appearances from Avatar: The Last Airbender co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, executive producer Ethan Spaulding and co-executive producer Sehaj Sethi, and voice actors Saheli Khan, Aishu Devan and Major Curda. Janet Varney, the original voice of Korra, moderated.

Avatar: Seven Havens originally received a 26 episode order that would be split up into two 13-episode seasons, titled "Books" in the style of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Avatar: The Legend of Korra. Book 1 of Seven Havens is titled "Survival."

More Seven Havens goodness followed the renewal announcement, as the panel showed off a clip from the end of the first episode that highlighted the show's journey from script to screen. Watch it below, but be warned: Major spoilers await.

The two-season renewal wasn't the only major Avatar announcement to come out of the NYCC panel.

Panelists revealed that an entirely new Avatar series is on the way. Titled Avatar Kuruk: Wave of Chaos, it travels back in time to the waterbending Avatar who preceded Kyoshi in the Avatar cycle.

The panel also told audience members that Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game would soon feature Seven Havens colorways and a stage based on Sonam's temple from Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender. Plus, future installments of podcast Avatar: Braving the Elements would feature Seven Havens cast and creator interviews.

Avatar: Seven Havens is now streaming on Paramount+.

Categories: IT General, Technology

The latest MacBook Pro and Ultra rumors: What we know about Apples OLED touchscreen Macs

Mashable - 4 hours 32 min ago

With a fresh batch of iPhones out of the way, and new smart home devices seemingly waiting in the wings, new MacBooks are almost certainly next on Apple's docket.

An updated MacBook Pro with the M6 chip is expected to arrive sometime this fall, based on its usual upgrade cycle. But rumor has it that another mysterious new Mac is also in the pipeline — the first with an OLED touchscreen.

Here's a running list of everything we know about the so-called "MacBook Ultra."

When will Apple release the OLED MacBook?

Bloomberg managing editor Mark Gurman — a fount of Apple scoops —  originally reported that the OLED touchscreen MacBook would arrive between the end of 2026 and early 2027. This spring, he was leaning towards the latter half of that timeframe because of the memory crisis. But these days, he's banking on an imminent release. (So are 55 percent of Mashable readers, according to the results of our Big Guessing Game: Apple Edition.)

The touchscreen MacBook launch "is scheduled on or around Tuesday, Oct. 27," Gurman reported recently, adding that its release will involve "an online video presentation and in-person component for the press."

Gurman thinks the touchscreen MacBook will be joined by an M6 MacBook Pro, M6 iMac, and an updated iPad mini with OLED. All of the new devices "will be geared toward creative professionals who work in video production, photo editing and music production," he said.

The OLED touchscreen MacBook would mark Apple's second all-new laptop of 2026 after the outrageously popular budget MacBook Neo.

How much will the OLED MacBook cost? The Dell XPS 14, one of the best MacBook Pro alternatives for Windows users, starts at $2,299.99 with an OLED touchscreen. Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

The OLED touchscreen MacBook will most likely be Apple's priciest laptop, given its upper-end processors and fancy display. For reference, the existing MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro chip starts at $2,499 in the 14-inch size and $2,999 in the 16-inch size.

Knowing that the iPad Pros got about 20 percent more expensive as part of their OLED upgrade, it's possible that a 14-inch OLED touchscreen MacBook will start around $2,999. Of course, that's assuming the global memory crisis doesn't wreak any more havoc on component costs before its launch, which may be overly optimistic. (Apple already had to raise its MacBook prices once this year amid "RAMageddon.")

Why an OLED touchscreen MacBook is a big deal

Touch-enabled OLED displays are readily available on most high-end Windows laptops, but Apple has never equipped its MacBooks with OLED panels or touch capabilities before. (The iPad Pro does have an OLED display, however.) In fact, company executives have long derided the latter. In 2010, late Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs called touchscreen laptops "ergonomically terrible." In 2018, software head Craig Federighi told Wired that he's "not into touchscreens" on laptops.

The MacBook Pro with the Touch Bar (RIP) was the closest thing we've had to a touch-enabled MacBook. Credit: Brenda Stolyar / Mashable

Then-hardware chief John Ternus, who recently ascended to the role of Apple's CEO, was still dismissing the idea of a touchscreen MacBook in 2021. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, he said Apple had already made "the world’s best touch computer on an iPad...And the Mac is totally optimized for indirect input."

"We haven’t really felt a reason to change that,” Ternus added. For whatever reason, that longtime strategy may have changed.

Apple experimented with an OLED "Touch Bar" on MacBook Pros from 2016 to 2021, replacing their physical function row with a customizable touchscreen strip. It was either cool or useless, depending on who you asked.

At present, the only Apple products with OLED touchscreens are the iPad Pros and iPhones. (The former specifically have tandem OLED displays, which are brighter.) The existing 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros have static mini-LED displays. They're "beautifully crisp," to quote Mashable's tech editor, but a touch-supported OLED model would be a more interactive laptop with better contrast, wider viewing angles, and zero blooming to boot.

How do we know Apple is working on an OLED MacBook?

A slate of well-known Apple insiders have all separately claimed to have intel that the company is preparing an OLED touchscreen MacBook for release in 2026.

Gurman — the source of so many Apple scoops — first broke the news in early 2023, calling it "a move that would defy long-held company orthodoxy" (see: that Jobs quote). Gurman has continued to report on the device's supposed development over the years.

In fall 2025, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote on X that an upcoming "OLED MacBook Pro...will incorporate a touch panel using on-cell touch technology." Kuo has foretold the arrival of Apple's foldable iPhone Duo, Vision Pro mixed-reality headset, and USB-C iPads.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This June, a reliable leaker known as Instant Digital added more fuel to the fire with a short post on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. "It's 100% confirmed that the MacBook screen will be touch-enabled," he wrote.

Just days later, Gurman reported that the developer beta for macOS 27 contained "the first tangible evidence from Apple itself" of the OLED touchscreen MacBook: newly added support for touch-responsive software features like a pull-to-refresh action. At this point, the device is all but confirmed.

What will the OLED MacBook be called? Existing MacBook Pros have had the same design since 2021. Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable

According to Gurman, the OLED touchscreen Mac is internally code-named K114 and K116. (That probably means it will also come in 14- and 16-inch sizes.) Both he and Kuo have referred to it as a high-end variant of the MacBook Pro, though Gurman's theorized that it could have a different name: MacBook Ultra, maybe?

"A 'MacBook Ultra' label would more clearly signal their [the OLED touchscreen Macs'] position at the top of the lineup," Gurman wrote in a March edition of his weekly "Power On" newsletter. Apple already calls its most advanced smartwatch and silicon chip the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and M5 Ultra, respectively.

But don't put too much stock in that just yet. We thought the foldable iPhone would be called the iPhone Ultra for a while, and it wound up getting the Duo identifier.

OLED MacBook rumored features

Gurman said the OLED touchscreen MacBook has a new interface that makes it easy to switch between touch and traditional point-and-click controls. Updates in the macOS 27 beta clue us in to three software features that will likely show up on it:

  • The iPhones' Dynamic Island, a pill-shaped notification area with a hole-punch camera cutout (no more notch!)

  • A pull-to-refresh action, similar to how you'd reload a website or social media feed on an iPhone or iPad

  • The ability to interact with an extended or mirrored iPad screen via touch inputs

Gurman has also stated that the new MacBook will have a full keyboard and trackpad, so using its touchscreen will be "completely optional." In other words, this is not going to be some sort of MacBook-iPad love child.

Looks-wise, Gurman thinks the OLED touchscreen MacBook will be "significantly lighter" than existing Pro models, which have had the same form factor since 2021. Apple's iPad Pros got up to 15 percent lighter when they gained OLED displays.

Apple's iPad Pro has had an OLED touchscreen since 2024. Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable

"Apple has reengineered the machine’s interior, miniaturizing parts and rearranging components to make the computer much easier to carry," Gurman wrote.

Bloomberg's Apple guru previously reported that the OLED touchscreen MacBook would also be much thinner than standard MacBook Pros, but he walked that back this month.

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In 2024, Gurman reported that Apple was "investigating the idea of bringing cellular connectivity to the Mac for the first time," but didn't specify whether that feature was intended for the OLED touchscreen MacBook or another future model. He hasn't mentioned it since, so Apple might've left that one on the back burner.

What chip will the OLED MacBook have?

The OLED touchscreen MacBook will reportedly run on Apple's M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, not brand-new silicon. That's according to Gurman again, who credited his sources as "people with knowledge of the matter ... who asked not to be identified because the plans are private."

Launched in March of this year, the M5 Pro and M5 Max fuel Apple's current top-end MacBook Pros. They're designed to handle the intensive computing workloads of power users like professional creatives, developers, and AI researchers. With that in mind, the OLED touchscreen MacBook will not be a laptop for the average person.

Categories: IT General, Technology
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