As expected, Apple today announced its new line of professional notebooks, the MacBook Pro.
When talking about him, Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, commented on a series of improvements made in its construction, but the main one is the OLED bar above the keyboard, designed to enable several contextual features from running applications. .
Part of the novelties are optimizations in their dimensions and weight. The product will continue to be sold on 13 and 15 inch models. The first is 17% thinner (14.9mm thick, against the 18mm of the previous one) and weighs 1.36kg. The second, on the other hand, went from 18mm to 15.5mm thick, ie 14% less (with 20% less volume), weighing 1.81kg.
The machines’ keyboards were updated to the construction method used in the current MacBook, with butterfly mechanism (second generation, according to Schiller) and larger keys. In addition, it was possible to increase the dimensions of the trackpad with Force Touch (2x larger than in previous models).
Touch Bar
It is the name of the so-called OLED bar, which is coming to replace the fixed function keys on the keyboard of Apple notebooks. In addition to allowing context-sensitive commands for the application in use, it also houses a Touch ID sensor, located on the right.
The sensor was built with the second generation technology used in iPhones 6s / 6s Plus, covered with sapphire crystal and connected to a new T1 chip on the notebook’s logic board. T1 is the device that ships the Secure Enclave for user’s digital storage, making it possible to unlock the machine and use it with Apple Pay, using the same protection technology as iPhones and iPads.
These are trivial features enabled to this day by Touch ID. But in the new MacBook Pro, it has also been integrated with fast user switching. That is, each computer user can register their fingerprints on partitions other than the Secure Enclave and, when recognizing a given access, macOS automatically switches to the correct user profile, without the need to select it on screen.
In the operating system apps and others produced by Apple, several functions have been incorporated into the Touch Bar. Some third parties were also invited to present their integration experiences, which will be open to all developers of applications for Mac.
Each application with Touch Bar support allows full customization of what you want to appear on the command bar. And of course: while typing, you can access emojis quickly through it. ?
Hardware
Unlike MacBooks, the new MacBooks Pro continue to use fans (and there are two from now on). We have configuration options with sixth generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors. Despite the reduction in dimensions, the battery life remains the same, for up to 10 hours.
Speaking of graphics, the 13-inch models feature the integrated Intel Iris GPU, with twice the performance of the previous generation. For the 15-inch MacBook Pro, some options from the ATI Radeon Pro (Polaris) family are available with up to 4GB of dedicated memory and up to 2.5 times more performance.
Regarding peripherals, we will have access to faster SSDs (3.1GB / s of bandwidth) with 2TB of storage capacity (maximum) and 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports (in each model, both 13 and 15 inches), with support USB 3.1 and DisplayPort 1.2. There will be no dedicated MagSafe 2, but on the other hand, they all serve to recharge the battery.
The Retina display remains at the same previous resolutions for both models, but is 67% brighter and has 67% greater contrast and a greater variety of colors (25% more compared to the previous model). And no, Apple did not remove the audio interface for headphones. ?
Pricing and availability
The 13-inch MacBook Pro will be sold in two editions, with and without the Touch Bar (and Touch ID), while its larger 15-inch brother will be equipped with the big news by default. Both start to be sold from today in two colors (silver and space gray), for respectively US $ 1,500, US $ 1,800 and US $ 2,400 – here in Brazil for R $ 11,500, R $ 13,900 and R $ 18,500.
