Apple today introduced the thinnest and lightest MacBook Pro ever, along with a breakthrough interface that replaces the traditional row of function keys with a brilliant, Retina-quality Multi-Touch display called the Touch Bar.
The new MacBook Pro features Apple’s brightest and most colorful Retina display yet, the security and convenience of Touch ID, a more responsive keyboard, a larger Force Touch trackpad and an audio system with double the dynamic range. It’s also the most powerful MacBook Pro ever, featuring sixth-generation quad-core and dual-core processors, up to 2.3 times the graphics performance over the previous generation, super-fast SSDs and up to four Thunderbolt 3 ports.
The Touch Bar places controls right at the user’s fingertips and adapts when using the system or apps like Mail, Finder, Calendar, Numbers, GarageBand, Final Cut Pro X and many more, including third-party apps. For example, the Touch Bar can show Tabs and Favorites in Safari, enable easy access to emoji in Messages, provide a simple way to edit images or scrub through videos in Photos and so much more.
“This week marks the 25th anniversary of Apple’s first notebook; through the years each generation has introduced new innovations and capabilities, and it’s fitting that this all-new generation of MacBook Pro is the biggest leap forward yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in a statement. “With the groundbreaking new Touch Bar, the convenience of Touch ID, the best Mac display ever, powerful performance, improved audio, blazing fast storage and Thunderbolt 3 connectivity in our thinnest and lightest pro notebook yet, the new MacBook Pro is the most advanced notebook ever made.”
Thinnest and Lightest MacBook Pro Ever
Building on innovations pioneered in MacBook, the new MacBook Pro features an entirely new enclosure design and all-metal unibody construction that creates an incredibly rigid and dense notebook that is amazingly thin and light. At just 14.9 mm thin, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is 17 percent thinner and 23 percent less volume than the previous generation, and nearly half a pound lighter at just three pounds. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro, at just 15.5 mm thin, is 14 percent thinner and 20 percent less volume than before, and weighing just four pounds, is nearly half a pound lighter.
Touch ID Comes to the Mac
Integrated into the power button is the convenience and security of Touch ID, one of the great features customers have come to know and love from their iPhone and iPad. Once you enroll your fingerprint in Touch ID on your MacBook Pro, you can quickly unlock your Mac, switch user accounts and make secure purchases with Apple Pay on the web with a single touch. Touch ID enables a quick, accurate reading of your fingerprint and uses sophisticated algorithms to recognize and match it with the Secure Enclave in the new Apple T1 chip.
Apple’s Brightest, Most Colorful Notebook Display
The best Mac display ever delivers images that are more vivid, reveal even greater detail and appear more lifelike than ever. As thin as a MacBook display at .88 mm, the Retina display on the new MacBook Pro at 500 nits of brightness, is an amazing 67 percent brighter than the previous generation, features 67 percent more contrast and is the first Mac notebook display to support a wider color gamut. And with power-saving technologies like a larger pixel aperture, a variable refresh rate and more power-efficient LEDs, the display consumes 30 percent less energy than before.
The Most Powerful MacBook Pro Yet
Powerful processors, cutting-edge graphics, blazing-fast SSDs, high-speed memory and an advanced thermal architecture deliver amazing pro-level performance in a dramatically thinner enclosure. Sixth-generation dual-core Core i5 with eDRAM, dual-core Core i7 with eDRAM and quad-core Core i7 Intel processors deliver pro-level processing performance while conserving energy. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro features powerful Radeon Pro discrete graphics delivering up to 2.3 times more performance than the previous generation; while the 13-inch MacBook Pro comes with Intel Iris Graphics that are up to two times faster than before. All models feature SSDs with sequential read speeds over 3GBps and Thunderbolt 3 which consolidates data transfer, charging and twice the video bandwidth in a single port — allowing users to drive a 5K display and power their MacBook Pro with a single cable.
The New MacBook Pro Also Offers:
• Much larger Force Touch trackpads — 46 percent larger on the 13-inch MacBook Pro and twice as large on the 15-inch MacBook Pro;
• More responsive and comfortable typing on the keyboard with a second-generation butterfly mechanism;
• Louder, more true-to-life sound through speakers with double the dynamic range and improved bass;
• macOS Sierra, the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, with new features like Siri integration, Universal Clipboard, Apple Pay on the web and Photos, which helps you rediscover your meaningful memories, organize your library and perfect shots like a pro.
Pricing & Availability
• The 13-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,499 (US), features a 2.0 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.1 GHz, 8GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage, and ships today.
• The 13-inch MacBook Pro with the revolutionary Touch Bar and Touch ID starts at $1,799 (US), and features a 2.9 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3 GHz, 8GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage, and ships in two to three weeks.
• The 15-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,399 (US), features the revolutionary Touch Bar and Touch ID, a 2.6 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.5 GHz, 16GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage, and ships in two to three weeks.
• Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available online at apple.com/macbookpro.
Source: Apple Inc.
MacDailyNews Take: Lustworthy.
SEE ALSO:
Wired hands on with Apple’s New MacBook Pro: It’s a whole new kind of laptop – October 27, 2016
CNET on the new MacBook Pro: Apple’s amazing strip show reinvents the notebook – October 27, 2016
Hands on with Apple’s new MacBook Pro: Looks and feels so good it’s unreal – October 27, 2016
Apple debuts three new TV ads for all-new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar – October 27, 2016
I had my checkbook out and ready to buy a new desktop Mac. Guess I’ll have to wail a little longer.
But I am lusting after that 15″ MacBook Pro for travel.
My iMac is in desperate need of an update guess I will just have to keep hoping it doesn’t die in the near future. Did I miss the memo where Mac was re-defined at only meaning laptops?
I hope your pessimism is unwarranted. I watched the whole thing and I didn’t hear anything about the desktop, so I don’t think it’s “official,” but it’s certainly disheartening for those of us wanting to upgrade a desktop Mac. Sometimes Apple’s penchant for secrecy is so disheartening. We never know if the event we’re waiting for is just a few weeks off, or if it’s never gonna happen.
@trondude, this was actually meant as a comment on your post.
I hope your right, but right now, it doesn’t seem like anything is in the works…one can hope though….
Actually the news isn’t that bad. The current iMac is competing favorably with M$ new Surface Studio. 🖖😀⌚️
Conclusion of article.
“The starting price for these devices at $2,999 for the Surface Studio and $1,799 for the iMac doesn’t tell the whole story, but the iMac specced to match (as closely as possible) the entry-level Studio comes in at $1,999.
Step up and that gap narrows a little, but you’re still paying quite a lot for Microsoft’s new Surface Studio compared to the older iMac. If it’s just a fancy big-screened PC you’re looking for, Apple is cheaper. Now how often does that happen?”
https://www.aivanet.com/2016/10/microsoft-surface-studio-vs-apple-imac-whats-the-difference/
Yes, it’s disheartening that no desktops of any kind were announced today. It’s likely no new desktops until 2017.
Also disheartening is the fact that EVERY piece of hardware that was announced today could have been announced months ago. Maybe even as much as five months ago. And, in 90 days or so others will ship Kaby Lake systems against which these new MacBook Pros will be compared.
True but as we know Kaby Lake is just a weak filler for the fact the next generation chip is endlessly delayed, it’s hardly a game changer. But yes Apple and Intel launches are hopelessly out of kilter seemingly Apple is more concerned with making comparisons with their previous products look good than keeping up with the current chip family. Complacent to say the least.
15 Pro maxed out price is $4300. Ouch. That’s
a lot of money even for me. The touch bar is not
enough to give up my maxed out mid 2014 15 Pro.
Dunno about in actual use, but it would seem the TouchBar would slow you down in a programmable Function Key intensive app like Photoshop…I can’t imagine that a TouchBar could be faster than pressing a single key.
I wouldn’t count on a new iMac, TC never even mentioned the Mac Mini, iMac, or Mac Pro, they may be dc’ed. I was waiting for ‘one more thing’ and at the very least an announcement of updated Mac line for 2017. Big disappointment.😟 🖖😀⌚️
I have been waiting a while for these new MacBook Pros. I have a maxed out 2014 Retina 15″ MacBook Pro. I’m a Apple laptop collector also, and have had pretty much every model they’ve ever made through my hands.
While I like aspects of this new MacBook – larger trackpad, brighter screen, thinner and lighter – all of these latter are not only expected after YEARS of no real upgrades, but required. What happened today is that… we got what we expected, and nothing more other than a big price increase. Really Apple?
Here are the issues I see:
-Price: the bump in price may cause people like me who own 15″ Retina MacBook Pros not to upgrade at this time.
-Touch Bar: I’m sitting on the fence with this. It seems almost confused. It’s interesting, but I have no idea if it will really be that useful to me day-to-day. I mean, it seems like it “clashes” with a multi-touch trackpad. Also, a bit awkward as you have to take your eyes off of the screen and look down at the keyboard: this could be a productivity killer. Why do that when you can just use the trackpad and mouse pointer…
-Apple releases this stuff, and the iMacs, MacBook Airs, and MacBooks have no Touch Bar. This is the problem I have with Cook. He doesn’t unify Apple’s product lines enough, so Apple ends up with a disjointed mix of products. Maybe they’ll experiment with this and if it’s successful do it on the rest. But this speaks volumes about a company who may no longer be confident in what the user wants or what the user doesn’t even know they want.
I have to say that I’m more excited about the Microsoft event yesterday. If Windows didn’t suck so bad, I’d buy a Surface Studio PC and Surface Book.
In the end, I’ll probably get the new 15″ MacBook Pro, but we are witnessing a company that is struggling with two different operating systems where all of the inputs are now wanting to come together into singular products like what Microsoft is doing. Here I am typing on my iPad Pro 12.9″ and my MacBook Pro 15″ is beside me. If I had a Surface Book, I’d only need one device…
You’d also have Windows. You’re better off. I’d be happy with your two devices. If I can’t wait any longer for a new iMac, I’ll get the 2015 one or the MBP with LG display.
Yeah, I got a rock too.
Apple has officially forsaken the desktop, Amazing….
No. just not ready yet.
Just not ready, yet.
Are you serious?
The richest company on planet Earth only releases a couple of products a year?!? WTF!?!
If you need a powerful GPU for your Mac take a look at this: https://bizon-tech.com
An external Thunderbolt 2.0 chasis for Mac to add a powerful graphic card even to a Mac Mini. This chasis is ready for real work but as a product it needs to mature even more. Even if Apple never produces one I think more products like this will work great in the coming months for very demanding graphics.
Fantastic, except for those of us who prefer “trucks”.
I’ll be excited when Apple updates the iMac and Mac Pro and brings the Touch Bar to the desktop keyboard.
Indeed the touchbar on a keyboard will be more innovative than the surface PC dead end. However whether they deliver it before hell freezes over is anyone’s guess. As someone said what are all these employees and all that RD expendeture doing.
The desktop is dead. Long live laptops! I weep.
Macbook Air is dead too.
Phil showed the complete laptop lineup for 2017: 12″ Macbook, 13″ Macbook Pro w/ function keys, 13″ & 15″ Pros.
🙁
The 13″ MBA is still for sell in the updated Mac part of Apple.com. It’s $999.00. I guess that will keep them in the under $1,000.00 category. The 11″ is dead. It will probably be aimed at education.
Be careful, at this moment 2:38 eastern, it doesn’t look like the website is updated. Don’t order an old one, thinking you are ordering a new one.
Why would I order a new one?
I’m about 1 inch from ordering a Surface Studio.
It’s your money, but go for the higher models. $3K for an i5 is just wrong…
Probably going to buy a Workstation, but am interested in the Studio.
Running Windows 10 is a security nightmare.. patches that install, you have no control, MS saw to that, so if they issue a bad one, your dead. All the data they collect, you obviously don’t give a rip about your privacy either, Good luck with that..
Not intending the device as an internet machine. I need it to transcode, encode and such. Mobile processors crammed into skinny aluminum cases are not a formula for happiness.
Stick it in an extra bedroom and run it headless with Remote Desktop.
The Surface Studios run Windows Pro which are much more secure than Windows 10 Standard. The data collection included in Windows 10 is not present in Windows 10 Pro.
As to your fear mongering, if you use the internet your data goes through Windows Servers routinely. Also, given the track record of security lapses at Apple, they have little to brag about.
With the proper setup they can be highly secure- as secure as any Mac. I have been pushing data over networks since long before the internet and know this to be true. Macs are vulnerable to drive by attacks and all the rest.
BTW- Apple still ships Macs defaulted to have the Firewall OFF on mac OS (OSX). Why would they do that? Why is Safari defaulted to open safe files after downloading? This does not sound like a company concerned about data security.
Which has USB 3.0 and USB A connectors, not even a combination. By the way, it looks good if you only look at the screen. The keyboard is a ripoff of Apple’s and the mouse is….a mouse. Could be from 12 years ago from Kensington. At least they’re finally going bluetooth.
Yep as I said if Apple anounced that thing they would be slammed for style over substance you do have to laugh how gullible some people are or simply how lacking in objectivity they become simply because for the more rabid amongst them, they don’t like Cook it seems.
While I won’t be ordering a Surface Studio because neither my work nor home life utilize a “drafting table” style, I have to hand it to Microsoft: it appears much more “innovative” than a Touch Bar.
Conclusion of article.
“The starting price for these devices at $2,999 for the Surface Studio and $1,799 for the iMac doesn’t tell the whole story, but the iMac specced to match (as closely as possible) the entry-level Studio comes in at $1,999.
Step up and that gap narrows a little, but you’re still paying quite a lot for Microsoft’s new Surface Studio compared to the older iMac. If it’s just a fancy big-screened PC you’re looking for, Apple is cheaper. Now how often does that happen?” 🖖😀⌚️
https://www.aivanet.com/2016/10/microsoft-surface-studio-vs-apple-imac-whats-the-difference/
I like the idea of touch input and an easel like view at the desktop. The iPad will never be a replacement for a Desktop Mac.
My most likely replacement will be to buy a Windows 10 Pro Tower and run it from one of my Macs using Remote Desktop for tasks requiring heavy lifting since Apple seems not to see fit to give us a proper workstation.
Can someone explain why the touchpad needed to be super-sized? I don’t understand the advantage. I could understand if they added an e-ink display to it or pen support. But it just seems a little goofy. I think the touchbar is genius, assuming it’s well deployed in apps. But the gigantic touchpad?
To keep users from getting ‘gorilla arm’.
The screen is not to be touched, so Apple wanted to maximize the area that users do physically interact with.
Hence, larger trackpad.
The Apple website says it’s pressure sensitive. So it will be somewhat like the pin. Now you can put your finger anywhere on it and press. It will be interesting to see just how sensitive it will be and if it can be incorporated into apps. I used the Magic Trackpad on my iMac and loved the larger size. Next year they will probably make it compatible with the pin.
Meh…no new Pro desktop. Once again the professionals that need tons of horsepower are left out.
Just noticed these pro laptops can’t be configured for 32 GB of RAM. Boo.
Also interesting that Apple calls the ports “Thunderbolt 3” instead of USB3 Type C. This will cause confusion as people think the latest MBPs have no USB ports at all.
So many port changes and name changes for the ports the past couple of years.
Sure enough, there’s already a copy-and-paste FB comment on all the top articles covering the event, saying the MBPs only have Thunderbolt and will require adapters.
Which is true, but still a half lie. Which Apple set themselves up for 100%.
Yep. 5 years ago the laptops were first able to support 16 GB of ram. You would think bumping it up to 32 GB five years later would make sense??? I got creative clients that want a laptop with more ram. There is no answer for this.
I agree. A 16 GB limit at this point is asinine.
Technically, they are USB Type C ports.
They just support the majority of the standard and alternate modes (TB 3 is an alternate mode).
It’s pure dumb marketing on Apple’s part to claim they are TB 3 ports.
Apple could’ve easily marketed the 13″ as having 1 TB3 + 1 USBC port, and the 15″ having 2 TB3 + 2 USBC ports.
The general non-tech public has no clue what Thunderbolt is, but they do know a laptop “without USB” is one they won’t want to get.
Apple just handed M$ another 2% market share.
Wow…tough room! This thing looks awesome!…just ordered mine. Lets see how everyone feels next quarter when apple crushes the high end laptop market….
As a long time mac user since the Classic II and a pro user who makes his living on a mac since the performa years, I am growing tired of defending Apple. Sucks the glory years are gone. I want power. I want power on my desktop. I want the biggest, baddest desktop. Instead I am shown new laptops with a gimmick bar. But it is thinner, yeah!
Make great again…Dump Tim Cook.
“gimmick bar”
I think you just named it.
Fitting addition to the “trashcan” name for the Mac Pro (not).
“Revolutionary gimmick bar”!
Ical that MDN. In 2 years, all decent laptops will have this…if it takes that long. This thing makes perfect sense. Remember how up in arms everyone was about a phone with no real buttons?
The bar is anything but a gimmick it’s a common sense solution that will be copied everywhere mark my words.
“Common sense is not so common.”
Voltaire
It will be copied, no question. Wait a minute aren’t adjustable keys already out there?
Again, i’m suprised at the haters…yes, we waited a while- but im very excited about the upgrade. This is a mac site folks- feel the love! Or should i call the waaa-mbulance?
I want to replace my late 2009 MacPro. If I needed to buy today, it would definitely be with a MacBook Pro. The apps I would need to use are being redesigned for the touch bar and a whole new way of working. I’m sure they will update the iMac for this but must not have the horsepower to do it all. Example–they are turning the display over to LG. The way they configured the MacBook with RAID, etc, is it really any different than the MacPro cylinder?
… was excited about the base model 13 without the touchbar gimmick.. until i saw the ridiculous price hike…
I didn’t even notice that. If I had to request a new laptop today, my company would not approve the purchase of the new 15″ model, and I’d be stuck with a Windows machine.
The new 15″ *starts* at roughly how much they paid for a *maxed-out* 15″ (1TB drive, 16 GB, dGPU) a half year ago! Though, at least the low-end 15″ now includes a discrete GPU.
Thats my main takeaway from the event, Apple is no longer into the entry-level macbook market. They’ll probably keep previous gen Airs for a while, but $1299 and 1 port is Apple’s new base.
15″ ordered. 2.9 i7 , 2TB ssd, 460 pro with 4gb graphics. The venereable 2012 MacBook Pro will be retired to home duty and attached to a display for light design work. The older 2011 iMac is going to my mother, and the 2013 Mac Pro stays where it is. I would’ve liked to see a new iMac today, but this MacBook Pro will definitely do what I need it to do, and will give cushion before a new 27″ 5k iMac comes home when it gets updated.
I got the same set-up with the 1TB drive. countin down the days now.
If you are a pro who needs the fastest Mac that connects to two large monitors and RAID systems you don’t care about “thin”. You don’t carry all that around with you.
You care about having multiple up-to-date GPUs, multiple CPUs, non-volatile RAM drives, etc.
Where is this huge leap in Mac Pro performance (and please, also in physical size) that could have been announced?
Shhh don’t tell anyone, but a little birdy tells me most of these will be destined to word processing, light photo editing, and status symbols in the corner office.
After all, why would the drones need better tech than managers?
I think the new laptops are beautiful.
I’m still hanging in there for a real mac desktop update though.
Where is the new Apple F350 TRUCK ? 🙂
Not even a 480… and you need two of those to match a single 1080 (even the mobile one)…
I guess it lowers the bottom line on parts cost so apple can make more money though…
Agreed.
I thought that was quite lame, as well.
The AMD Radeon 480 would have been a wonderful inclusion, or even upgrade option, but Apple went with the runt of AMD’s GPU family.
Probably the only ‘mobile’ version available at the time of design. Bleh…
So explain to me why Apple is using last year’s intel processor but demanding very high prices? Kaby Lake has been out for a month now and this is still using the previous generation. I just don’t understand. I know the speed difference is not all that much, but its just bad business to claim a top shelf price and not have the lastest processor.
I too was hoping that Apple might put a 7xxx series cpu in these, but alas, looking at the specs of the 13″ P-book confirms that it uses the Intel Iris 550, which is used with the last gen Intel chip.
The newer cpu uses Intel Iris 6xx series for its video processor.
That’s a bummer.
I’m guessing that the touch bar will make its way into the desktops with an update to the wireless keyboards.
I’m very excited about the potential of USB-C connectors now. The period for adapters will last a while but hopefully this will be the standard port on all tech for the next 20 years. Now for Apple to ditch Lightning on the iOS side…
I use a wireless keyboard and wireless trackpad with a 98″ LG 4K screen. Think of it as wall-screen computing. 🙂
I would love to get a wireless keyboard with touch bar!
—
Incidentally, I run the screen with a lowly 2016 MacBook tucked out of sight and it works great. Perfect way to demo software or work collaboratively.
I have a maxed out windows desktop for major crunching, but would love a REAL Mac Pro to hook up to the wall screen.
FYI: 16GB of RAM is what the MBP comes with, and that’s the maximum capacity. There’s no custom configuration with more RAM, and it certainly isn’t user-upgradeable. Thankfully, the internal SSD is fast because Pros will be experiencing perpetual page-outs from the swap file.
All that time to produce that?! Yeeesh. And no SD slot. Apple’s phoning it in.
I have a 2012 iMac it’s getting old, I want a larger screen, I do not care about laptop’s never did nor do I care about 4k or 5k with the same 27″ sized screen!!!
These Macbook Pros NEED 32 GB RAM!!!!
BOO HOO!
Well the solid state storage is about as fast as ram so I think 16 is fine – you won’t even know the difference
Is anyone else wondering why Apple is using processors that were introduced over a year ago in their brand new MacBook Pros? Seems odd to me that they’re not using Intel’s Kaby Lake Core i7.
The new laptops seem decent, but not compelling. The Touchbar is a nice feature, but not worth an upgrade by itself. And as usual, Apple overcharges for their storage upgrades, though that’s been their standard for as long as I can remember.
Because the quad core Kaby lake processors aren’t shipping in volume yet, and don’t offer a big jump in performance over sky lake. As far as the dual core configs go, it’s probably solely a volume issue. There will most likely be a kaby lake bump in the spring. If you noticed Microsofts new machines are still using sky lake, and previous gen 980m graphics on that all in one. You won’t see large adoption of kaby lake chips until next year.
Kay Lake is having yield issues. Apple probably could not count on enough volume for a product launch. That still doesn’t explain the high prices though
It’s your money, but go for the higher models. $3K for an i5 is just wrong…
@DavGreg
Have no idea how this ended up here.
No new iMac?
Catastrophic failure.
Meanwhile my 2009 iMac just keeps getting slower with each OS upgrade (but I cannot upgrade to Sierra), and apps like Garage Band are unusable, forget about FCP.
I was hopeful that Apple would finally release a new iMac that was worth upgrading to, but they failed at that simple task again. The rumored specs of what should have been announced today had my credit card at the ready as it was finally something I wanted to spend $3k on.
So, I will no longer support Apple until they release an iMac that I want to purchase; no iTunes song purchases/movie rentals, no app store purchases, and most critically, no new iPhone until Apple gets its act together and updates the desktop line.
Thanks for nothing Apple.