New Apple MacBook Pro Is First Laptop With Apple CMF 2026 Color Modes

Apple's new MacBook Pro with an OLED-type PROLED XDR Display and touchscreen is the first laptop to support Apple CMF 2026 color modes, and only the second Apple product to do so. John Higgins, a display expert and trained calibrator at the technology site The Verge, sees it as a possible future for displays. It matters for professionals who need color to look the same regardless of screen type.

What CMF means

CMFs, or color-matching functions, mathematically describe how people perceive color. The long-standing standard is CIE 1931, developed by the International Commission on Illumination (Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage). It was based on just 17 test subjects, and most reference modes on the new MacBook still use it.

Over the past 20 years, display technologies with ultra-narrow band spectra have appeared, such as OLED, LEDs with KSF phosphors and quantum dots. Even with the same D65 white point calibration, one image on an OLED and a quantum dot LED screen can look identical to one person and different to another, because eyes vary, for example in cone sensitivity, which also changes with age. Apple CMF 2026 aims to make displays look the same regardless of technology.

What the MacBook Pro offers

Apple first included the new CMF in the Studio Display XDR monitor. Now it is available in a portable device. The MacBook Pro has two Apple CMF 2026 reference modes: one for P3 color primaries and one covering both P3 and Adobe RGB. Peak brightness with HDR and SDR content is 2,000 nits, while the Studio Display XDR reaches up to 1,000 nits of SDR luminance. The True Tone setting automatically adjusts HDR tone mapping, brightness and white point to ambient lighting.

Using the new CMF is not mandatory, as 14 more reference modes based on CIE 1931 are available, including DICOM for medical imaging. Apple Pro Display Calibrator, with three calibration methods, is also supported.

Apple is working with a CIE technical committee on a proposed standard. The new MacBook Pro costs $2,900, while the professional monitor costs $3,300.