(Image credit: Apple)

The year is almost over, and there’s no doubt that 2025 was a significant one for all of Apple’s best Macs. From splitting up its chip launches to a radical redesign for macOS, we weren’t short of talking points over the last twelve months. Yet for all the successes, there were several notable failures, plus a host of disappointing absences with key products pushed to the back burner. Here, we’ll recap it all, putting Apple’s Mac efforts under the microscope and looking ahead to 2026.

Fresh-faced Mac upgrades

(Image credit: Future)

Apple began the year with the launch of a smattering of Macs, with one at the affordable end of the market and the other occupying flagship territory.

Starting with the former, Apple released the M4 MacBook Air in March 2025. This brought a few notable enhancements over the M3 MacBook Air from 2024 and was well-received when we reviewed it. Notable upgrades included the CPU core count rising from eight to 10, the front-facing camera being upgraded with a 12MP lens and Center Stage support, and the maximum memory increasing from 24GB to 32GB. Despite all that, the price actually dropped from $1,099 to $999. While it wasn’t an earth-shattering update to the MacBook Air, it was certainly a positive one in almost every way.

At the other end of the spectrum was the Mac Studio, which also received a fresh coat of paint in March. The most notable change here came in the form of two new chips, but the arrangement was not without its quirks.

In this case, Apple launched the Mac Studio with an M4 Max chip and an M3 Ultra option. That’s right, the high-end chip was actually from the previous generation compared to the chip below it in the hierarchy. That made for an awfully confusing decision for buyers: was the M4 Max better because it used a newer architecture, or was the M3 Ultra more powerful because it was from a higher tier?

In the end, it was the M3 Ultra that won out, and it produced some pretty incredible performance numbers. It also showed itself to be an excellent gaming chip, although it’s hard to justify on this point alone compared to a Windows PC, given its price. But speaking of gaming, Cyberpunk 2077 landed on the Mac in July, signifying that the platform is finally holding its own as a gaming destination - or so Apple hopes, anyway.

The M5 chip gets an unusual launch

(Image credit: Future)

Apple’s Mac releases used to be simple: every instance of a new chip, from baseline entries to high-end monsters, came out at the same time. The M5 changed all that, though, with Apple pushing the M5 in October 2025 without any sign of the M5 Pro, M5 Max, and M5 Ultra, which presumably are coming later.

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For now, we just have to judge the M5 lineup on its entry-level model. The eponymous M5 has a Neural Accelerator in each core, which means 4x the peak GPU compute of the M4, and that’s really geared towards artificial intelligence (AI) output. Elsewhere, there’s 30% faster GPU performance and a 45% ray tracing improvement compared to the M4, while our review of the M5 MacBook Pro showed that its CPU got 20% faster multithreaded performance compared to the M4.

The only Mac that this chip found its way into in 2025 was the 14-inch MacBook Pro. Aside from the performance uptick, this laptop also got improved battery life: Apple says you’ll get up to 24 hours and our analysis largely confirmed that, with the laptop even outperforming Apple’s numbers in our web browsing test.

That said, we’re still waiting for the elephant in the room: the long-rumored MacBook Pro with a touchscreen OLED display. This has been rumored for years and failed to show its face in 2025, but industry whispers suggest it’ll arrive next year; let’s hope they’re right this time.

M5 Vision Pro: did Apple do enough?

(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

It’s no secret that Apple’s Vision Pro headset has struggled to establish itself since it launched in 2023. No doubt the company was hoping to give it a shot in the arm when it updated the device in October 2025, but many will have been left a little underwhelmed at the changes that were made.

Why are we talking about it here in a piece about Apple’s Mac updates? Well, the Vision Pro was outfitted with the M5 chip that found its way into the MacBook Pro, giving it the same level of power as Apple’s most performant laptop. As well as that, its battery life was boosted, and it got a new headband to help distribute its weight more evenly. That’s got to be good, right?

Those changes might have been welcome, but they failed to address the biggest problems that have been plaguing the Vision Pro since its debut: its weight and price. Sure, the headband is designed to spread the weight more comfortably in use, but it doesn’t address the fact that the Vision Pro is still a heavy headset. The heft wasn’t reduced at all in the new version, making it just as bulky as ever.

As well as that, Apple didn’t touch the Vision Pro’s price, something that has been a major sticking point for years now. At $3,499, the Vision Pro has essentially priced itself out of reach for all but the most profligate or enthusiastic of consumers, meaning it’s struggled to become a must-have device for most people. While a cheaper model has been talked about endlessly for years, there are murmurings that it might have been put on hold. Even if it does eventually launch, it could be too little, too late for Apple’s virtual reality gamble.

The Liquid Glass revolution

(Image credit: Apple / Future)

As you can see, there were plenty of changes to Mac hardware over the past twelve months. But the software didn’t stand still either, with macOS receiving its most significant design overhaul in years.

In macOS 26, that took the form of Liquid Glass. That’s Apple’s name for its glassy, transparent interface that refracts light and imbues a water-like quality to moving objects. It’s certainly eye-catching.

The problem is that many people have also found it very difficult to use. Text can be hard to read when two panels overlap each other, while Apple’s option for clear app icons makes them exceedingly difficult to differentiate at a glance. There’s no denying that Liquid Glass is pretty, but is it actually all that usable? The jury’s still out on that one.

It was perhaps telling that the departure of chief interface designer Alan Dye from Apple -- the man largely seen as most responsible for Liquid Glass -- was met with cheers and hearty approval from some quarters. Liquid Glass is divisive, and it’ll likely continue to be so for some time to come.

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Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he's learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That's all his brain can hold. As well as TechRadar, Alex writes for iMore, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at MacFormat magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.

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