The M5 MacBook Pro isn’t due out until 2025, but we’re already hearing more about what new features might be coming to it. According to the analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will be using a new supplier for its camera starting in 2025.
As reported on by MacRumors, Kuo states in a Medium post that the Chinese manufacturer Sunny Optical will be taking the place of both LG Innotek and Sharp, the current suppliers used for MacBook Pro webcams.
Now, this might seem like a fairly innocuous change to make. It’s not unusual for laptop manufacturers to make changes to its supply chain, and the effects aren’t always felt by the user.
However, Kuo notes that Sunny Optical is a “first-tier” supplier of compact camera modules, though it’s been focused on brands based in Asia and never worked with Apple before. Kuo suggests that the change is primarily a cost-saving measure, allowing Apple to use a single supplier for both the camera module and the lens itself.
I’m more interested in a potential increase in quality, though. The current MacBook Pro uses a 1080p FaceTime camera, and I’d love to see an increase in resolution and quality. Other laptops, such as the HP OmniBook X, has a 5-megapixel camera, while others have moved to 1440p.
While the image processing on the current MacBook Pro is good, it doesn’t stand out from other high-end laptops like other aspects of the MacBook Pro. Perhaps a change in supplier could offer a chance to bump up the quality, especially if some new efficiencies in the supply chain have been introduced.
More than that, it could be a good opportunity to finally bring Face ID to the MacBook Pro. This is a feature that’s been requested, rumored, and delayed for many, many years at this point. Face ID has been on iPhones and iPads since 2017, and facial authentication in Windows Hello has been around since the launch of Windows 10.
And yet, MacBooks still require using Touch ID or a password to safely log in. It’s been so long for Face ID to come that it feels like it may never actually happen. Then again, with Apple finally making a Calculator app for the iPad and bringing RSC support to iPhone — anything seems possible these days.
All that to say, if Apple really is improving the camera in next year’s model, it’d be the perfect time to bring Face ID to the Mac — even if it’s exclusive to the MacBook Pro at first.
The new camera module could also align with a larger redesign to the MacBook Pro to make it thinner, in line with the recent change to the M4 iPad Pro. We know this is something Apple is working on, though there have been mixed reports on when it will launch. 2025 certainly seems like a fitting time, especially since that will have been four years since the last chassis update. The problem is that the rumored shift to tandem OLED, something the iPad Pro has, repeatedly gets pegged by leakers for 2026.
It’s all a bit tentative, but we do for sure know that these changes won’t be coming to the MacBook Pros that are due out later this year, which will be a mere chip upgrade to the M4 series.
In addition to the MacBook Pro changes, Kuo predicts that the switch to Sunny Optical could also result in working with the company on the iPhone and iPad in the future as well.
