The MacBook Pro refresh we’ve been eagerly anticipating for months is finally here, and it’s everything we dreamt it would be.
Apple’s new high-end notebooks deliver a sleeker design, Intel’s latest Skylake processors, and that magic Touch Bar with Touch ID that we’ve been hearing so much about. The only real problem is the price.
This year’s iPhone refresh may have been slightly disappointing (to most), but Apple is knocking it out of the park with its latest MacBook Pro, which is better than ever before.
Its new design is thinner, lighter and more compact — measuring just 14.9mm thick if you choose the 13-inch model. That’s 17 percent thinner than the last 13-inch model, and it’s also half a pound lighter. The 15-inch model weighs just 4 pounds.
The MacBook Pro sports a Force Touch trackpad that’s twice as big as before. The keyboard uses the second-generation butterfly switches introduced with the 12-inch MacBook. But that’s not the biggest change you’ll find under the lid.
MacBook Pro Touch Bar brings the magic
The new MacBook Pro is Apple’s first machine with a Touch Bar. It’s a long Retina display that sits above the keyboard in place of the function keys. It provides similar shortcuts, but now it’s customizable — and developers have the ability to cook up their own to make their apps easier to use.
Instead of seeing the same functions all the time, you can access more useful ones while you’re using apps like Photos or iMovie. In Safari, for instance, it displays favorites and lets you navigate. In Photos, it displays useful tools like crop and rotate.
Photo: Apple
The Touch Bar automatically adapts to the software you’re using, and you can customize it, so you choose which shortcuts you see inside your favorite apps. All of Apple’s apps already include Touch Bar support, including even Terminal! And Apple says Microsoft is baking support for Touch Bar into its Office suite.
While you’re typing, the Touch Bar displays emoji and QuickType suggestions, like on iPhone and iPad. It also displays notifications, supports Multi-Touch and lets you quickly change things like font color.
Touch ID comes to Mac
Alongside the Touch Bar is a Touch ID sensor, allowing you to unlock your MacBook Pro with your fingerprint for the first time. You can also register multiple fingerprints for different users, and quickly switch between accounts in a tap.
Touch ID can also be used to authorize Apple Pay payments on the web.
New MacBook Pro display is better than ever
Photo: Apple
The new MacBook Pro has Apple’s best Mac display ever. It’s 67 percent brighter, brings a 67 percent higher contrast ratio, and boasts 25 percent more colors than the last MacBook Pro. Despite all that, the display is even more efficient.
Every 15-inch MacBook Pro is powered by an Intel Core i7 processor with Radeon Pro graphics that feature 4GB of VRAM. They also have super-fast SSDs — they’re 50 percent faster than before — with up to 2TB of space.
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is available with either Core i5 or Core i7 processors and Intel Iris Graphics 550 processor.
All models with the new Touch Bar pack new speakers that sound louder than before, with twice the dynamic range. They also offer four Thunderbolt 3 ports that use the USB-C style connector like the 12-inch MacBook, and any one of them can be used for charging.
Oh, there’s a headphone jack, too. Remember those?
MacBook Pro pricing
Photo: Apple
The MacBook Pro “is the new gold standard in notebook computers,” said Apple’s Phil Schiller during Thursday’s “Hello Again” Mac event. The new high-performance Apple laptops come in silver and space gray (there’s no gold or rose gold), and they became available to purchase today.
Now for the only real disappointment: pricing.
Prices start at $1,799 for the 13-inch model with Touch Bar, and $2,399 for the 15-inch model. You can order yours now from Apple.com, with shipping in two to three weeks.
The MacBook ‘Semi-Pro’ (the one without the Touch Bar)
If the Touch Bar models would break your budget, Apple introduced a new low-end 13-inch MacBook Pro that starts at $1,499. It lacks the Touch Bar, and only includes two Thunderbolt 3 ports. Traditional function keys remain, and it comes with the less-powerful Iris Graphics 540 processor.
This one (let’s call it the “MacBook Semi-Pro”) starts shipping today, but who’s going to buy it?
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
25 responses to “New MacBook Pro is thinner, faster and more magical”
Now hurry up and get the store back up so I can place my damned order
Is it just me or swiping the touch bar is stupid when you have a big generous trackpad?.
People with “fat ” fingers won’t be able to work well with that thing.
Im a proud owner of 3 macbook pro, but I think i will never buy one again. Its too expensive now.
Totally agree. I will be hackintoshing in the future. No wonder Johny Ive doesn’t show up at these things anymore. Probably too embarrassed.
£1749… no thanks. Not to mention we’re seeing a £1 to 1$ exchange rate on all products, but of course that’s not Apple’s fault…
Freakin’ “touch bar” but NO PENCIL FUNCTIONALITY!!!!! Come ON APPLE… WHY THE FRAK CAN MICROSOFT GIVE ARTISTS WHAT YOU SHOULD BE GIVING US!!!!!!
Designers and artists use tablets or touchscreens. I doubt they scribble over a small touchpad…
I don’t know what a small touchpad has to do with Microsoft. Am I missing something? Creative types use MBP with Wacom pads or high end Macs or Windows or Cintiq. Sure a tablet may be part of their workflow but not the main focus for most. Yesterday, Microsoft gave those creative types the stunningly beautiful Studio. That is what he is complaining about, Apple is ignoring that whole market with this Touch Id.
I don’t want to call it a gimmick but, it only being on the high end devices $1500 (13″) $2400 (15″) it’s overall need diminishes greatly. I actually see the Touch Id could be useful but, not so useful for those prices. Strange, to ignore the other devices considering nothing in the Apple laptop line will be priced for under a $1000. If the Touch Id so important and life changing they should have made it available on all their new devices.
It took Microsoft a several years (since Windows 7) to perfect touch input into what pretty much is a desktop OS.
Either Apple is protecting tablet sales and not planning anything or they are working in the background and trying to perfect it before making any announcement.
Not talented enough they basically took BSD and added pretty icons, se itunes an appl musak App=l oly good at directing chinese workers
No new MBP for me. Certainly not!
new MBP are nice. But when you claim that the Mac is so fundamental to the company, I am sooo disappointed that there was nothing on iMacs, Mac Pros or even Mac Minis. Instead they waste time of the Apple TV poop. I am so sick and tired of this wagawuga.
…And no lightning port to connect the EarPods.
Whyyyyyyyyy no more HDMI & USB. That stuff was so convenient. NO ONE WANTS TO BUY A FUCKLOAD OF ADAPTERS
well adapters with type c come with bunch of stuff i bought one with HDMI, usb 3, vga and ethernet for 40$
They look great, but: The MagSafe connector keeps my Mac from crashing to the floor. I use the HDMI port every time I do a presentation. I need the SD card reader for my cameras and GPS unit, they are way to slow on USB. And I use like 4-5 USB peripherals at work every day. Ports are better than adapters…
Amen Brother.
There are millions of MacBook Pro users out there, like myself, who see this as a logical and welcome upgrade, Apple will have little problem selling these, even though I said ouch when they announced the prices. I paid $1200 for my 13″ MBP a couple of years ago, now that comparable computer is several hundred dollars more. To have made this a compelling new Apple product release, they would have had to brought out the TouchBar model for $1500, max. The pricing will significantly slow its sales impact on Apple’s bottom line, only true professionals will shell out that kind of money for a new notebook.
Seriously? $1,799 for entry level MBPr with the Touch Bar. I was extremely excited about today’s event until I saw the outrageous price tag. Yeah it’s got some cool tech inside it and they did some engineering magic to get it there. But come on. When I’ve been rocking my early 2011 MBP with no hiccups do I really want to fork out $1,799 minimum for a new computer with the latest and greatest. I think not…
Seriously, 8 gigs of ram? 16 gigs is insufficient now! No option for swapping/upgrading ram? Was looking for a 32 gig option, not 8 and no other upgrade options!
Time to consider some other alternatives. This seems like a means to roll users over to IOS or just end the Mac OS line.
see, the basic piece of advice i tell people is you go on your mac and you click on activity monitor. , you do this with your apps open. if memory pressure is low and colored green, you really don’t need anymore ram then you have now. the extra ram will just make os x cache more.
if memory pressure is higher or colored red, then yeah you need more ram, ignore all the other numbers, just look at the graph
I’m 100% with you man. No 32GB option is absurd. Yet they give the option for 2tb SSD for $1000 more?
New MacBook Pro is thinner, faster and more magical. and 25% more money!!!!! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dbfe73652fc77a7ac2f0c6e8d91325ea2452758f40939b7093b6f389c8f2a3fb.jpg y!!
“The MacBook Pro refresh we’ve been eagerly anticipating for months is finally here, and it’s everything we dreamt it would be.” … you’re having a laugh? Surely?
1) You can’t use any of your peripherals without a dongle octopus hanging out of the side of your machine.
2) The amazing Pro keyboard has been replaced by the practically zero travel Macbook attrocity which I have NO intention of spending hours and hours each day typing on. IT IS VILE TO TYPE ON!
3) We wait for years and all we get is a stupid gimicky touchstrip which means we have to look AWAY from the screen (I didn’t learn to touch type just so that in 2016 I’d have to stare at my keyboard again).
4) We are paying hyper-inflated prices and Apple are still putting a paltry amount of DDR3 memory in when DDR4 has been out for years (way to cut corners and maximise their profit magins).
5) They put Iris graphics chips in there (jeez they are bad) or sub-par Radeon graphics?! Where’s the new Nvidia 10xx series?!
6) No touchscreen? Now I couldn’t see me using one for much, but at the prices Apple are charging there should at least be one as an option.
7) The processors are little better than what was on the previous generation and for a laptop launched today are STILL outperformed by other laptops that have been on the market for months.
8) With a smaller chassis the battery sizes are smaller than the last Macbook Pros, and although Apple are claiming you can get roughly the same battery life as the older Macs (probably due to better processor efficiency) if they kept the size the same and put a bigger battery in we’d have been able to get EVEN MORE work time from the Pro, there was NOTHING wrong with the size of the now previous gen MacBook Pro.
9) They take the headphone jack out of the iPhone where you need it, but aren’t “courageous” enough to take it out of the Pro?!
10) You can’t even plug the new iPhone 7 into the Pro without having to use a dongle that doesn’t come with the phone and you have to spend more money with Apple!
11) They have removed magsafe which was awesome, and which up until this point they had been singing the praises of as innovative and a lifesaver (and now they go all quiet and hope you don’t notice).
I am SO angry with such a sub-par device after waiting so long.
not enough RAM for 3D or video work, no ports that are worth anything, no touch screen. it’s sort of a bigger iPad. sorry give me something that i can use.
On all the new MacBooks, the new style keyboard is a non-starter. I was afraid they would do this. I may upgrade my 2012 15″ pro to a 2015. I tried the new keyboard on the 12″ in the store and anyone who likes to type, or needs to do a lot of typing (documents or coding) would not like these keyboards. If I had one of these I would have to get a 3rd party keyboard immediately, which is ridiculous at the prices they are charging. These new ones are $300-400 more this year. Also, I invested some money in Thunderbolt. So, I would have to add another $300 in stupid adaptors to get my USB sticks, thunderbolt drives, and other USB items to connect to these. I am not saying that USB-C or thunderbolt 3 is bad, but give us both for god sakes. Plus, try and find any thunderbolt items that use 3 right now. Look how long it took to get reasonably priced thunderbolt 1 items!
They should have just bumped the specs, added the touch bar, and left the keyboard and footprint alone. Apple is going in the wrong direction.