Apple’s new MacBook Pro is slim, trim and has a stunning screen

We knew it was coming, and now it’s here. Apple’s newest MacBook Pro. It’s thinner, it’s lighter and it comes with a better screen than the Pros of yesteryear. But, given how much of the company’s presentation was dedicated to it, the showstopper for the new MBP is a truly unique hardware feature in the world of computing — an OLED screen embedded in the keyboard called the Touch Strip.

That sliver of screen eliminates the hard function keys we’ve been saddled with for years in favor of an infinitely customizable and contextually aware software inputs instead. At first blush, it looks like it’ll be quite the useful feature for creative power users, which is why Apple spent so much time in the keynote showcasing its uses for photo and video editing and music making. Plus at the right edge of that strip lies a Touch ID sensor, that allows folks to login to their Macs via their fingertips. In the limited time I spent with the new Pro, that sensor worked as it should — which is to say considerably faster than typing in a password.

As for using the strip itself? Well, there wasn’t much we could do except for scroll through webpages, apps and photos, and for that it worked well. For such uses it strikes me as more of a novelty than anything particularly useful, though it was nice to be able to utilize the full screen while scrolling through images.

Aside from the Touch Strip, the laptop itself is an engineering marvel. It feels super solid, like a solid slab of aluminum, and I’m particularly enamored with the space gray finish. It’s remarkable that Apple managed to cram fully fledged MBP internals into a chassis that weighs even less than a MacBook Air — I held my Air in one hand and the new 13-inch Pro in the other, and I couldn’t tell a difference between them. The 15-inch model is a bit heavier, of course, but it’s still a relatively svelte machine for how powerful it is.

And I can’t discuss the hardware without mentioning the new screen. The wider color gamut it provides isn’t something that most civilians need, but it is a noticeable upgrade when you see the difference side to side. Colors really are richer and more vibrant, particularly with warmer colors: reds and yellows in particular.

You can order the new MacBook Pros starting today, with a standard model (read: no Touch Strip) available now for $1499, while the Touch Strip equipped 13 and 15 inch models will set you back $1799 and $2399, respectively. You can get a standard model in store tomorrow, while the others won’t ship out for 2-3 week. Patience is a virtue, y’all.

Apple unveils a thinner MacBook Pro with an OLED ‘Touch Bar’

Apple’s long-awaited MacBook Pro refresh is finally here and it’s… well, pretty much what we expected. That’s Apple’s fault, partially, after a recent macOS update revealed details about the laptop’s OLED touch strip — now known as the “Touch Bar” — and Touch ID. Instead of having the usual function and hardware control keys at the top of the keyboard, the Touch Bar will offer contextual options depending on what you’re doing. As usual, the new MacBook Pros will be available in 13-inch and 15-inch options, and they’re both thinner and lighter than the previous generation.

While the overall design of both laptops looks similar to what came before, there’s some significant refinement here. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is 14.9mm thin (17 percent skinnier than before), has 23 percent less volume and comes in at just 3 pounds. The 15-inch model is 15.5mm thin (14 percent less than before) and has reduced its volume by 20 percent. Overall, that bigger version is just four pounds.

While we’ve been hearing about a potential OLED strip for months now, the Touch Bar actually looks pretty compelling in person. In Safari, it shows you a list of your bookmarks. Perhaps most useful for texting addicts, there’s a slew of commonly used emojis when using the Messages app. And in Mail, you’ve got buttons for creating a new message, replying, deleting and — wait for it — an escape key.

Plenty of Apple fans were annoyed by Apple’s removal of the physical escape key, so it’s nice to see the functionality is still around in some form. And if you need the traditional function keys, you just need to hold down the single function key, which is still at the bottom left corner of the keyboard.

You’ll also be able to customize the Touch Bar for individual apps. And, in a neat touch, you can do so just by dragging new options from the settings window down from your screen, and into the Touch Bar itself. Try doing that with your old function and hardware keys. Apple has added Touch Bar support to most of its apps — heck, it’s even in Terminal.

The new MacBook Pro’s screen is 67 percent brighter, offers 67 percent higher contrast and sports 25 percent more colors than the last generation. Apple claims it’s just as thin as the 12-inch MacBook’s display. Under the hood, the 15-inch model is powered by a quad-core Intel i7 processor, 2,133Mhz RAM and Radeon Pro (Polaris) graphics, which is 2.3-times faster than before and can hold up to 4GB of video memory. The 13-inch version, on the other hand, will include dual-core i5 and i7 processors and Intel Iris Pro graphics, which Apple claims is twice as fast as the last model.

One major change? Apple is doubling-down on USB-C with this computer — you’ve got four Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports on the side (each of which can handle power), along with the headphone jack. That’s a shame for anyone who still relies on traditional USB devices, or who needs an integrated SD card reader (like us tech reporters). Sure, you can get adapters and other peripherals to make up for that, and USB-C is powerful enough to drive high-resolution displays and faster storage drives. But the lack of port flexibility also seems strange for a “Pro” device. It makes sense on something like the MacBook, which aims for extreme portability, but less so in a flagship laptop.

Click here to catch all the latest news from Apple’s “Hello again” event.

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How to watch Apple’s ‘Hello Again’ event

Roughly an hour from now, Tim Cook and pals will take to the stage at Apple’s “Hello Again” event. The redesigned MacBook Pro complete with OLED touch strip and fingerprint reader is already out of the bag, and we expect there could be more updates across the MacBook range. Other than a shoutout to the next iteration of macOS, though, who knows? New iPads maybe, or iMac refreshes? Perhaps even a surprise or two.

We’ll be on the ground liveblogging our hearts out, of course, but you too can follow along with the event livestream if you wish. All you need to do is point the Safari browser on your Mac or iOS device at this link, and you’ll be good to go. Macs running OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion or later and iThings running iOS 7 and up, that is. Anyone with a Windows 10 machine can also access the feed through Microsoft’s Edge browser, and Apple TV owners with at least a second-gen device will be able to find the livestream easily too. And, of course, we’ll be covering everything right here at engadgetdotcom.

Source: Apple

We’re liveblogging Apple’s ‘Hello Again’ MacBook launch!

Hello again, indeed! If it feels like we were just doing this, it’s because… we were. Apple held an event last month to unveil the iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 2. There was much fanfare and we had quite a bit to say about it all. Now, just a few weeks later, Apple is back, hosting yet another event, with this one rumored to be all about MacBooks. Rumors point to refreshed 13- and 15-inch models, obviously with newer chips inside, and very likely some smaller ports along the edges. We’ll also be curious to see if the long-neglected MacBook Air line gets some love, or if it gets the axe. (Or, it could die a long, slow death, the way the iPod Classic did.)

One thing you probably won’t hear about at this event: those rumored MacBooks with E Ink keyboards. If those are even real, they’re not expected until at least 2018. With those expectations set, get comfy and hunker down as we give you the blow-by-blow on today’s keynote. (And stay tuned afterward for our first impressions of the new devices, once we get to see them in person.)