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Customers in the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) won’t get a power adapter in the box when they purchase the latest MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro with the M5 chip! Here’s more about it.

Apple announced the refreshed versions of the 14-inch MacBook Pro, 11-inch & 13-inch iPad Pro, and Vision Pro – all with the latest M5 chip built on the third-generation 3-nanometer technology. It also released a few accessories, which we have talked about here.

One notable omission from the press release was the absence of a 70-watt MacBook charger and a 20-watt iPad charger in the box. However, the purchase page for the MacBook Pro (M5) and the What’s in the Box section for the iPad Pro clearly indicate the missing adapter.

Price cut in the EU but not in the UK

I reviewed this year’s and last year’s Apple Newsroom posts, as well as the purchase pages for Apple France (European Union) and Apple United Kingdom. Here’s what I observed.

MacBook

UK:

• MacBook Pro (M4): Starting price £1,599
• MacBook Pro (M5): Starting price £1,599
• Change/Savings: £0

France:

• MacBook Pro (M4): Starting price €1,899
• MacBook Pro (M5): Starting price €1,799
• Change/Savings: €100

Apple’s 70-watt power adapter that’s included in the box for the rest of the markets costs £59 in the United Kingdom and €65 in France.

Now, customers in France and other EU countries have a 100 Euro price cut, which more than compensates them for the missing in-box adapter. But UK customers of the new M5 MacBook Pro will have to shell out an extra 59 Pound sterling to charge their new laptop, unless they already have an Apple or third-party adapter with sufficient power output (60 watts or more).

Of course, sticker price and price changes in a specific country are not as simple as they sound; they vary by currency valuation, markets, and even the cashback Apple provides via local partner banks. But at first glance, it appears Apple is taking UK customers for a ride by not providing a charger in the box and offering no price cut either!

iPad

Now, let’s get to iPad Pro (M5).

UK:

• iPad Pro (M4): Starting price £999 (11-inch) and £1299 (13-inch)
• iPad Pro (M5): Starting price £999 (11-inch) and £1299 (13-inch)
• Change/Savings: £0

France:

• iPad Pro (M4): Starting price €1,219 (11-inch) and €1,569 (13-inch)
• iPad Pro (M5): Starting price €1,119 (11-inch) and €1,469 (13-inch)
• Change/Savings: €100

Apple’s 20-watt charger in the iPad box for the rest of the markets costs £19 in the United Kingdom and €25 in France.

Once again, customers in France and other EU countries get ample price cuts to justify buying a power adapter separately for their new iPad Pro. People in the United Kingdom have no such recourse.

No clear option to purchase the charger…

Here are a couple of weird things I noticed when trying to place M5 MacBook Pro and M5 iPad Pro orders on Apple UK and Apple France (EU) websites.

MacBook

When you visit apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro (UK) or apple.com/fr/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro (France), you’ll notice three M5 MacBook Pro variants listed there:

• 512GB SSD Storage, 16GB RAM
• 1TB SSD Storage, 16GB RAM
• 1TB SSD Storage, 24GB RAM

After you click Select for any of these options and stay with just the default specs, the option to select a power adapter – even if you’re willing to pay extra – will be grayed out (screenshot below).

But as soon as you select any upgrade, such as Nano Texture display, more RAM, or more SSD storage, the option to purchase a power adapter for an extra fee will become available (screenshot below).

Now, imagine you want to buy an M5 MacBook Pro with 1TB storage and 16GB RAM, along with a 70-watt adapter. To do this, you can do one of the following:

• Place two orders or add both items separately to the cart. If Apple chooses to ship both products separately (which is very likely), it means more packaging, more environmental waste, and more carbon emissions!
• Don’t click the 1TB SSD Storage, 16GB RAM model on apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro (UK) or apple.com/fr/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro (France). Instead, select the 512GB SSD Storage, 16GB RAM model, then select the 1TB upgrade for £200/€250 extra, and then you’ll get the option to add the adapter for an extra £59/€65! Are you confused yet?

iPad

M5 MacBook Pro has an illogical adapter selection option on the buy page, but M5 iPad Pro lacks even that. If you want an adapter for your new iPad, you’ll have to add it separately to your cart. Unlike Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard, you can’t add the adapter directly from the iPad’s purchase page.

Has the EU made it mandatory not to provide a laptop charger in the box?

No! Unlike making USB-C compulsory, the European Union has not mandated that laptop manufacturers not include a power adapter in the box. However, it has an ‘unbundling‘ directive that allows customers to buy an electronic device and its charger separately. So, Apple could have easily included the charger for all users, with the option to reduce the charger’s cost from the laptop price if a customer chooses not to buy the adapter. Instead, Apple removed the charger for all EU and UK users and has them pay extra for it.

One reason for this, from Apple’s perspective, could have been the complexity of packaging and third-party sellers. Apple’s official website could have easily provided customers the option to opt out of the charger for reduced cost, but this option may not have been possible to implement on a large scale with other sellers, such as Amazon or third-party marketplaces. Therefore, Apple may have decided to nuke the adapter from the box for all European users. Please make what you will of it…

Now, as highlighted previously, EU users have a 100 Euro price cut to buy a charger, plus some savings on top. Sadly, the UK users have no such benefit.

Bad precedent for the world…

Apple already:

• Doesn’t include a charger with iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods in almost all markets.
• Does cost-cutting by no longer including a USB-C cable in the AirPod 4 and AirPods Pro 3 box.
• Doesn’t include an HDMI cable with Apple TV or other Mac desktops.

If Apple’s no-adapter-with-MacBook-and-iPad experiment is successful in Europe, it may implement this worldwide in the pretense of reducing environmental waste.

Unlike the iPhone, which can be charged even with cheap power adapters that output just 5 watts, using a low-wattage charger with a MacBook Pro shows “Battery Is Not Charging” in the menu bar. Furthermore, “A USB-C power adapter with minimum 60W is required to charge this device [MacBook Pro],” Apple says.

If Apple doesn’t include a charger in the box, it’s certain that most people will have to buy a 60-watt or higher Apple or third-party adapter separately. Remember that cheap adapters on Amazon and those provided with some Android devices don’t always deliver the advertised wattage. You can check how much power your MacBook is getting by going to macOS System Information > Power > AC Charger Information.

Separate orders – no matter which marketplace or store you buy from – surely lead to more packaging and more trips for the delivery company, both of which lead to additional pollution and carbon emissions. Those delivery planes, vehicles, and warehouses aren’t environmentally friendly, however much Apple wants you to believe!

What are your thoughts on Apple not including a power adapter with MacBook and iPad?

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/10/16/no-charger-macbook-pro-ipad-pro-eu-uk/

In this step-by-step tutorial, I will walk you through three methods for downloading macOS installer files, which are used for installing macOS on a different partition and creating a bootable USB installer.

Installing macOS on a second volume/partition lets you have two or more macOS versions (such as Tahoe and Sequoia) on the same computer.

And creating a bootable USB installer allows you to have macOS on a thumb drive and install it on various computers without having to download the massive file each time.

For both of the above, you need the macOS installer file. Here are three ways to get it.

Before you begin

• Make sure you have at least 20 GB of free space on your Mac.
• You need a stable Internet connection to download the file.
• Officially, your Mac can only install the macOS version it initially came with and future supported versions. For instance, my M2 Mac mini came with macOS Ventura (year 2022) out of the box. So, I can download and install macOS Ventura (2022) up to macOS Tahoe (2025). I can’t install macOS Monterey (2021) or older on this machine.

Method 1. Using direct Apple links

The upside is that you just need to click a link to download the macOS installer, then follow a simple installation process. The chances of failure are extremely low, unless you run into Internet issues.

1) Do a web search for direct download links for macOS installers. One of the sites I trust is Mr. Macintosh, which provides Apple links to download all beta and non-beta versions of macOS. Here are the links for a few recent versions of macOS (non-beta). Click one to start the download.

• macOS Tahoe 26.0.1
• macOS Sequoia 15.7.1
• macOS Sonoma 14.8.1
• macOS Ventura 13.7.8

2) Once the full InstallAssistant.pkg file is downloaded, double-click to open it.

3) Go through the simple installation process. You don’t necessarily have to change the installation location or do anything out of the ordinary.

4) After the installation is successful, you’ll see a pop-up asking if you’d like to keep the PKG file or move it to the Trash. You can free up space by moving it to the Trash and emptying it. But I recommend emptying the Trash after following step 5 below.

5) Go to the Applications folder in Finder or Applications overlay in macOS Tahoe/Launchpad in earlier versions. You’ll find the macOS installer (Install macOS name) here, as seen in the screenshot below.

Method 2. Using Terminal

Terminal is one of the easiest official ways to download the macOS installer. You don’t have to get intimidated by it, and the entire process is straightforward. Here are all the steps.

1) Open the built-in Terminal app on your Mac.

2) Type the following command and hit the return/enter key.

softwareupdate --list-full-installers

Terminal will take a moment to find all available software that’s compatible with this particular Mac. It won’t show macOS versions that your Mac doesn’t support.

If you also want to see the latest beta software in Terminal, first go to System Settings > General > Software Update > info button ⓘ next to Beta Updates and choose developer or public beta. Then reopen Terminal and re-run the above command.

3) Once you’ve a list of all supported macOS versions listed in Terminal, enter the command below, followed by the version number.

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version number

For instance, I want to download macOS Tahoe version 26.1, so I will add 26.1 at the end of the above Terminal code. It will look like this:

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 26.1

4) Terminal will download the installer file. You can check the progress right inside Terminal.

5) Once the process completes, Terminal will show “Install finished successfully.” You can close Terminal now.

6) Go to the Applications folder in Finder, and you’ll see the macOS installer you just downloaded (Install macOS name).

Method 3. Using Apple App Store

All recent macOS versions, except for the latest macOS Tahoe 26, are available for download from the official Mac App Store. You can use it to download a supported version of the macOS installer on your computer.

1) Open the Mac App Store and search for the macOS version name, such as macOS Sequoia, but remember that it won’t always show the relevant result. So, find all macOS installer download links on this convenient Mac App Store story page. Or, use these direct links to open the respective page in App Store:

• Download macOS Sequoia
• Download macOS Sonoma
• Download macOS Ventura
• Download macOS Monterey
• Download macOS Big Sur
• Download macOS Catalina
• Download macOS Mojave
• Download macOS High Sierra
• Download macOS Sierra
• Download OS X El Capitan

Some super old macOS versions are also/only available for download using direct links:

• Download macOS Sierra 10.12
• Download OS X El Capitan 10.11
• Download OS X Yosemite 10.10
• Download OS X Mountain Lion 10.8
• Download OS X Lion 10.7

2) Click the GET button in the Mac App Store, and it will open the Software Update screen in System Settings, showing a pop-up. Click Download here, and it will start downloading.

Don’t worry; this process won’t overwrite your current macOS installation with the new one; Software Update in System Settings will just download the macOS Installer, leaving your current macOS untouched.

You can see I already have macOS Tahoe installed on my Mac mini, but I’m still downloading the two-year-old macOS Sonoma.

Note: The GET button will be grayed out or you’ll see an error if your Mac isn’t compatible with that particular macOS version you’re trying to download.

3) Once the download is complete, check the Finder Applications folder to make sure of it.

What to do next?

Once you’ve the macOS Installer (Install macOS name) in the Finder Applications folder, you can use it to get macOS on a second volume/partition or create a bootable USB installer:

• How to install macOS Tahoe 26 on a different partition of your Mac
• How to create a bootable USB installer for macOS Tahoe 26

What if the process fails?

The direct Apple link method: Try resuming the download, or click the link again to restart it.

Terminal method: If the process fails, you’ll see the “Install failed with error: An internal error occurred” message in Terminal. Running the above-mentioned Terminal command again and re-downloading the same macOS build should resume it from right where it failed. You can also retry after a few hours.

App Store method: Even after the full macOS file is downloaded, you may see an error pop-up in System Settings saying something like, “This installer cannot be used from the version of macOS you are running.” Ignore it and check your Finder Applications folder. You should see the macOS Installer there. If not, download using other methods.

Which is your go-to method to get macOS Installers?

Also, check out: 15 new things to try in macOS Tahoe 26

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/10/15/download-macos-installer/