Apple today updated MacBook with the latest Intel processors, improved graphics performance, faster flash storage and an additional hour of battery life, making the thinnest and lightest Mac better than ever. Featuring an all-metal unibody enclosure, MacBook is now available in four aluminum finishes — gold, silver, space gray, and for the first time on a Mac, a gorgeous rose gold. With a stunning 12-inch Retina display, highly responsive full-size keyboard, Force Touch trackpad, versatile USB-C port and all-day battery life in a design that is just 2 pounds and 13.1 mm thin, MacBook is the future of the notebook.
“MacBook is the thinnest and lightest Mac we have ever made and it’s our vision for the future of the notebook,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in a statement. “Customers are going to love this update to MacBook, with the latest processors, faster graphics, faster flash storage, longer battery life and a beautiful rose gold finish.”
The updated MacBook features sixth-generation dual-core Intel Core M processors up to 1.3 GHz, with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.1 GHz, and faster 1866 MHz memory. New Intel HD Graphics 515 deliver up to 25 percent faster graphics performance, and faster PCIe-based flash storage makes everyday tasks feel snappier — from launching apps to opening files. And now with up to 10 hours of wireless web browsing and up to 11 hours of iTunes movie playback, MacBook is the perfect notebook for all day, on-the-go computing.
MacBook comes with the incredibly small and versatile USB-C port for charging, data transfer and video output in a single connector that is one-third the size of a traditional USB port. Following the introduction of USB-C on MacBook, the ecosystem of Apple and third-party USB-C accessories has continued to grow, giving users added flexibility and capability.
With no moving parts or vents, MacBook is entirely fanless for silent, efficient performance. Designed for the wireless world, MacBook is equipped with the latest wireless technologies, including built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 for fast wireless connectivity. It is perfect for tasks like streaming content from your MacBook to your Apple TV using AirPlay, exchanging files quickly using AirDrop® or using wireless headphones.
Apple also today made 8GB of memory standard across all configurations of the 13-inch MacBook Air.
Every new Mac comes with OS X El Capitan, the latest version of OS X that refines the Mac experience and improves system performance. El Capitan builds on the groundbreaking features and beautiful design of OS X Yosemite, with updates to window management, built-in apps and Spotlight® search, and performance improvements to make everyday activities — like launching and switching apps, opening PDFs and accessing email — faster and more responsive.
iMovie, GarageBand and the suite of iWork apps come free with every new Mac. iMovie lets you easily create beautiful movies and you can use GarageBand to make music, or learn to play piano and guitar. The iWork suite of Pages®, Numbers® and Keynote® makes it easy to create, edit and share stunning documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Pages, Numbers and Keynote for iCloud® let you create a document on iPhone® or iPad®, edit it on your Mac and collaborate with friends, even if they are on a PC.
Pricing & Availability
MacBook is available through Apple.com starting today, and in Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers starting tomorrow. MacBook comes with a 1.1 GHz dual-core Intel Core m3 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.2 GHz, 8GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage for $1,299 (US), and with a 1.2 GHz dual-core Intel Core m5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.7 GHz, 8GB of memory and 512GB of flash storage for $1,599 (US). Configure-to-order options include a 1.3 GHz dual-core Intel Core m7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.1 GHz. Additional technical specifications and accessories are available online at www.apple.com/macbook.
MacDailyNews Take: Boom!
Buh-bye, 11-inch MacBook Airs (Mid 2013, 1.7 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3). We loved you the most of any Mac, ever, but now it’s time to go!
Nice!
Now how about the 15 inch MacBook Pro?
Or putting the latest technology into the iMac. These are the computers that I am interested in.
Or…
What about the Mac mini?
What about the Mac Pro?
Now the Crapbook is as fast as an iPhone 5S. Hooray!
😳
Exactly where is the market for this pink (sorry… “rose gold”), overpriced, underpowered netbook?
Tim Cook is just about as incompetent as you can get and still have a pulse! Once he milks the iPhone into stagnation, only then will they finally fire this lazy, greedy, non-innovative clown!
Wow, good thing you only buy Dells, right smart ass?
I can’t speak for the joker above, but I’ll still play ball. I went into this assuming that Apple must be offering something special, but looking at specs alone, it just ain’t so.
If you can use Windows, you can get a Dell XPS 13 laptop that will run circles around Apple’s latest MacBook. Sorry, but Apple’s fashion show is for posers. If you do any processor intensive work whatsoever, then paying a premium to get a MacBook is just not that great a decision. Other Macs offer vastly better value as well.
So let’s compare the specs:
Dell XPS versus Apple MacBook
processor: Core i5 versus Core m3 or m7
display: 13″ versus 11″
GPU: Intel HD520 versus Intel HD515
Memory: both configured to 8GB (Dell allows options
Drive: both configured to 512 GB
Data Ports: SD, 3xUSB, Thunderbolt, power, VGA, HDMI, Ethernet, & minijack versus 1xUSB & minijack
Chassis: aluminum, 0.6″ thick versus aluminum 0.52″ thick
Battery: 56 watt-hour versus 41.4 watt-hour
Price: $1150 versus $1299
So where does Apple win?
With Apple, you get Mac OS X (vanishing advantage, frankly) and a whopping 0.08″ thinner chassis.
For $150 less, Dell gives you a vastly superior piece of kit in every other measurable way.
Apple deserves all the criticism it is getting for offering inferior hardware at premium prices. Hackintoshers, please proceed to get OS X onto a Dell XPS. That could be the best Mac Apple would have released in 3 years.
Thanks for the input, Michael Dell.
So that’s your attempted response to a clear objective list of facts?
Cook is running the Mac business into the ground.
Enjoy your overpriced underpowered pink netbook.
Get a life, that was funny! 🙂 No one is forcing you to buy a MacBook. Apple will release awesome new MacBook Pros in a few months and they’ll make another fortune off of them. The spec comparisons never address the key issue, who the F wants to use soul-sucking Windows? I understand that poor people may have no other choice, but if we’re spending so much time on computers, why not use an OS that doesn’t treat you like a demented automaton. I’d rather use iOS as my primary OS than Windows, I wasted enough of my life on that POS.
How about three or four USB C ports?
Get with it, man! It’s a wireless world.
Until you need a wire.
Careful the FBI might be listening.
At least two, one for power and one for user stuff. When will apple listen to what people want as poopsed to what they want to sell? It isn’t always a better horse cart when a truck would do better.
“Poopsed.” Wonderful typo.
Snappy!
Apple’s “Buy” button for these shows “Page Not Available”!!
Works now.
here we go again with the latest iteration of thin fetish.
and for what ? what you gain in weight reduction you lose in other arenas
sure, back in the day of the wallstreet laptops, it was like lugging an anchor around, and reducing weight and bulk was not only desirable, but a necessity.
it hasn’t been like that for quite a while now. make it thinner and you lose those lovely little usb ports that come in sooo handy.
i have no complaints with the form, weight and functionality of my 13 inch, 2012, macbook pro.
perhaps i am just an anachronism in my own time, but if you really want thin then get a macbook air.
i prefer the workhorse nature of the older macbook pro models. and the speedier processors available since then.
It’s for road warriors, moron, not for you. That’s why Apple makes a RANGE of portable Macs. Those of us who work from the road and, mainly, the air/airport need the lightest and thinnest possible. The ONLY thing I’ve ever plugged into my MacBook’s USB-C port is the charger.
BRUTAL…….!!
Now give me airplane wifi that actually is worth the price…..!!
That doesn’t mean that they had to stop making 15-inch MacBook Pros with optical drives. I’m not saying the optical drive is a necessity – it really isn’t. But the nice thing about the optical drive is that it can be replaced with a two terabyte hard drive.
BrutalTruth, get a grip. The poster to whom you’re replying is absolutely NOT a moron.
I AM a road warrior a lot of the time — often taking as many as eight or more flights a week. I HATE the concept of a single port on a laptop. Mac laptops are NOT a tablets. (Hell, even the iPad Pro units have more than just one port!)
If you *really* require the “lightest and thinnest possible” as your highest priority above and beyond *all* else, then get a tablet.
And, I would dare say you’re the exception if the *only* thing you’ve ever needed or wanted to plug into your MacBook’s UBS-C port is the charger.
You really can’t appreciate the MacBook until you use one. Purpose built and a dream to use for those who travel.
In other words, it’s the most expensive netbook ever. Yippeee.
How very quaint
You forgot “bespoke”, another word that means over-priced.
Major fail – a year later and no Thunderbolt connexion thru USB-C. Once again, Apple leads from behind. There’s nothing to see here, folks.
Big announcement? Wall Street again responds with ho-hum. “Nothing to see here folks, move along. Apple Phone Inc. has stalled out.”
It is always like this. Those of us who have a need for some specific feature (optical drive, ethernet port, analogue modem, PC card slot, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, analogue 3.5mm headphone out, etc) will loudly protest its disappearance.
The biggest problem is that Apple is smarter than most of us. Eliminating optical drive from a laptop can be mistakenly explained away with weight savings. However, when it is eliminated from a 30″ iMac, that explanation doesn’t sound plausible. And the actual reason is the one most of us (who loudly protest disappearance of features) would have the hardest time accepting: nobody uses those features (well, nobody but us).
Apple carefully studies the usage habits of their users and mercilessly and unapologetically removes stuff that is used by less than perhaps 1% of user base. Everything that Apple eliminated was due to the low usage; from floppy, to SCSI, to FrontRow remote (??), miniDV output, ExpressCard slot (remember that one?), analog/optical audio input… All these (plus the ones mentioned above) were at some point introduced, and then eliminated because too few people used them. As someone who never used the FrontRow remote, ExpressCard slot, analogue modem port, Ethernet port, or SCSI, I am pleased not to have to pay for them, so that someone else who needs them can use them.
By eliminating everything but the stuff that everyone needs, Apple has built the most optimised computer for everyone. If I need an optical drive, it is a cheap add-on for me, and not an unnecessary cost for you who don’t need it.
We can dislike this trend, but in the end, it makes many more people happy by making the most ideal device for the largest group of users.
For that one time that I need the optical drive, I can hook it up via that one USB port. The rest of the time, I don’t have to carry additional 120g of dead weight in my laptop.
I know this is not what most here want to hear, but this is a very simple and logical explanation for Apple’s reasoning. One can’t blame them.
Go ahead and cheer as Apple removes capability that many of us still require. Apple’s focus on fashion over performance is hurting its users. More and more of Apple’s ultrathin products are not even worth consideration, while a glance at the MacRumor buyers guide shows that full-feature Macs are outdated and still overpriced.
Apple can’t keep going down this road if it expects to retain high-spending power users.
Sorry, but every serious Pro Mac user over the last 10 years was using Firewire in a big way. Apple should not have ditched it from the MacPro until at least the next generation–if that ever shows up.
And no 16GB option for RAM? Seriously?
Good that they made 256GB the entry level option but the upgrade to 512GB ($300) is still insane.
I am not arguing against you; you are certainly correct in that serious Pro Mac users use FireWire.
That, however, doesn’t change the fact that the percentage of Mac users who did use FireWire kept dwindling to the point that they decided that everyone else who isn’t using FireWire was paying for something they don’t need.
Pro users are the visible victims of Mac’s growth success. While large percentage of large percentage of Apple’s Mac user base used to be pro (some fifteen years ago), thanks to Mac’s strong growth in the general public, today, most of Mac users use none of the ports (other than occasionally one USB, to stick in a flash drive).
The absolute number of pro Mac users hasn’t actually shrunk; in fact, it may well have grown. Unfortunately, their share of the Mac market has become too low to be considered.
This is really disappointing for all of us who do want some of these features, but that is how it is. Apple may well shed some high-spending power users buy offering these devices with few features, but for them, it is a very clear and simple business decision. After all, they do have shareholders to respond to.
I for one was very disappointed to learn that the IR receiver was removed from the Macbook Airs (it may have never been present, I’m not sure). As someone who does presentations a lot I REALLY appreciated the 100% reliability of Apple’s remote. Using my Air for presentations became an unecessary stress when the bluetooth remote apps inevitably froze, failed to connect or I didn’t have nearby wifi.
Boom!??? Sorry MDN, I think it’s kind of an underwhelming update. But it is the entry level portable. Yet, I think its pricey for what it is.
I say it’s pricey because I think you get much more from the Macbook Air, even if it does not have retina display.
intel m7… PASS.
Isn’t it exciting to have a dual processor 1.3 GHz chipset?
Do anything more than email and web surfing, and it will feel just like 1999 all over again!
More overpriced fashion from Apple, nothing more.
Just to remind you: in 1999 the fastest Mac miney could buy was the 500 Mhz PowerMac G4 with a single-core processor. These MacBooks are up to 20x faster than those behemots.
I concede that literalism leads to correctness.
The Artist Formerly Known As Prince agrees.
Of course, comparing the MacBook to historican models isn’t relevant — chipsets and OS are completely different. What matters now is performance compared to the competition. The Geekbench benchmarks show where the MacBook lies: it is now below the Air models in Apple’s hierarchy.
http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks
For 2015 models, in 64 bit single / multi core measurements:
MacBook scored 2299 / 5276
MacBook Air scored 3241 / 6868 (soon to be discontinued?)
MacBook Pro scored 3895 / 14743
So again, why is Apple selling a netbook that is more expensive and less capable than the Air? Were road warriors unhappy with the Air’s dimensions?
It is time for Apple to offer more value and more performance in its Macs rather than pretending that ultraflat pink netbooks are the future. Nobody gives a shit how thin Ive can squish a neutered Mac. Everyone would have been much happier with updated MacBook Airs, which offer enough internal volume for a lot more interesting stuff that road warriors _DO_ ask for.
This is a very entry level computer for $1300.
I still have a 2008 Mac Book unibody working perfectly fine with 2.0 core 2 duo CPU and Yosemite. With all the generational improvements the new up to 2.2 Ghz CPU option should be faster, but how much? I don’t think 2X, maybe 50%. And I paid $1.300 back in 2008.
Integrated graphics improved a lot, battery life is 3X and a better display. I do feel it is overpriced, even if you need a very light computer.
You can see how your 2008 MacBook stacks up here:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks
My guess is that an SSD and maxing out the RAM would put you on par with the current MacBook for significantly less than $1300. And you would be able to plug more than one thing into it at a time….
It’s a 3.1 GHz chipset. It just slows down to 1.3 GHz so your brain can keep up.
Too small, too expensive, waiting for the Pro for my wife and the next iMac for me.
Just make sure to get the highest amount of RAM. That’s something you have to deal with when you get a computer with non-upgradeable RAM. Or can you send it in to Apple to get the logic board swapped out for one with more RAM?
service after the sale? not anymore! Apple is now being run like a fashion shop. Apple now thinks people will upgrade computers to get the new color disposable sealed box, as if nobody will ever need a new hard drive or RAM.
Tim Cook’s legacy: pink laptops.
Well, y’all, the newest models aren’t always what everyone needs. Would someone trade their iPhone for an Apple watch? No, I don’t think so.
Very true. Just like no one with any working model of MacBook from the last several years would ever want to downgrade to this pink POS.
I recall when MDN all agreed that Apple doesn’t play in the low end of the pool. Well, times have changed. Now Apple creates underwhelming netbooks and then has the gall to charge more than prior Macs that run circles around it.
Even more embarrassing is what Green posted: a Dell that has superior hardware to the MacBook in every way. WTF, Apple ?!?!?!?!?