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
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.
Apple have just taken themselves completely out of the education market. Not just for institutional purchases, but students buying their own laptops as well. Now it is clear why they didn’t launch these for back to school, as they wouldn’t have sold many at this price anyway.
The price points are still within reach for students who value performance: the MacBook Air student price is under $1000, the MacBook $1250, and the base MacBook Pro $1450. Pretty much all premium notebooks are within the $1000-$1500 range these days (inc Windows), with business class notebooks going for $1500-$2500. So Apple is just following the trend.
The big difference is that you can now get a low-end cheapo Windows or Google laptop for $300-$500, so there’s a huge price difference between cheapo stuff and the premium notebooks. Steve Jobs always said that Apple would never go there, they would not cater to the bottom-feeding commodity computer market, and Apple is following this practice.
It does mean that the class divide will continue to grow with schools. As a parent the first thing I would ask is whether the school district supports Apple or not. I would never let my kid go to a Windows school…
The big difference is that Apple is charging $999 for a machine whose components and now crap display make it worth no more than the $400 cheapo windows machine.
Don’t just look at hardware specs, I would take a MacBook Air any day over a comparably priced Windows machine, let alone a $300 Walmart special. It all depends on how important performance is for you as a complete package, and not just with some hardware components. You may have a Windows computer with more powerful components, but if the build quality and craftsmanship are crap, then you’ll only be frustrated, as I’ve seen time and again with friends who use Windows. With Sierra you get a lot more computer, in spite of the components.
good point.
Better still get a Windows 10 with touch and you can do far more much more easily. Sorry Apple but a touchbar is simply laughable when you see what a Windows 10 device can do.
What a disappointment. im comparing this with my 2010 MacBook and I don’t think the changes are enough for me to move on. Yes it’s much faster. But does it change the way I work everyday that much? I guess no. For the first time in more than a decade, I believe Microsoft has the hottest new product available with that surface they released yesterday.
So long for the biggest and with most money in the bank company in the worlds …
Good luck with that – Use that Surface for a while and you will be back lickaty split!
Are you kidding? Retina display, brand new OLED menu bar, 3d touch track pad, latest ports, and yes, WAY faster chip, RAM and video, lighter and with a longer lasting battery. If that ain’t a worthy upgrade, im not sure what will please you…
The prices, for last season’s chips to boot, are outrageous.
This is a long post and my last here.
I’ve been a Mac user since System 7.
Letdown does not even begin to describe it.
Cook’s keynotes were always uninspiring but this was by far the worst. The most disappointing 90 minutes I’ve ever experienced.
Making something a bit thinner and lighter and crowing about it as if nobody but Apple could achieve such a remarkable feat has become so damn old it’s not even funny. “Groundbreaking” my *ss.
Watch the keynote again and notice the total silence while Phil emoted over the volume decrease. A lot of those people in the audience watched the M$ surface demo a few days ago. This must have been pretty tedious by comparison.
MagSafe, a brilliant piece of tech that makes it a snap to plug in your laptop: Gone.
USB, which EVERY PERIPHERAL I OWN uses: Gone.
***YOU cannot even connect an iPhone to the new MacBook Pro without an adapter.***
The SD card slot, which I use daily to download camera cards: Gone.
F keys, which I use hundreds of times a day to do simple things like turn the volume up and down, pause and play music, and escape out of tools and functions in apps: Gone.
(If you think this idiotic ‘Touch Bar’ is innovative then your expectations are far too low. The point of the physical keyboard is that you don’t need to look down. This touch strip adds nothing but another level of complexity to the user experience, 99% of what it purports to do was already available in each app’s UI.)
My GF, waiting patiently for an Air update, is very frustrated. Now she has to either get the overpriced and near useless MacBook, with ONE port, or pay 2016 cash for 2012 tech with the outdate Air that she could have bought a year ago, or plonk down $1500 for a laptop with a freaking pathetic 256Gb SSD.
I have come to the sad conclusion that M$ is leading the way, and that with a new CEO barely 2 years into the job.
So. I’m done with Apple.
I’m done wasting my life hoping they’ll surprise me, I’m done defending them in forums, I’m done watching their boring keynotes and I’m done wondering when/if they’ll go back to supporting me as a professional user.
I’m also done giving Apple my money, only to watch it go to buying communists and rapper’s approval and Cook’s relentless SJW campaigning (brainwashing everyone into thinking homosexuality is normal when every fact of human biology says otherwise) or padding Apple’s insane and borderline immoral $237b bank balance.
I’ll be buying either Windows machines or used Macs from now on and recommending my peers do the same.
A Mac is clearly not for you, and that’s fine, have fun with Microsoft (though I do recommend looking at the Belichick video of him throwing down a Surface in pure frustration).
For me Apple hit exactly my user category today, they hit a home run. All the things you tick off as deal breakers are non-issues for me. I haven’t used my MBP’s SD slot in years, and for me the USB-C multi-functionality is well worth giving up mag-safe.
Everything else is fantastic and I can’t wait to get my hands on one…
This is one of the best takes I’ve ever read.
I agree, Tim Cook’s primary focus is not on Apple, it’s on “Hooray For Homos” and “Cash For Clinton.”
Time for him to go.
http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2016/10/19/trump-praises-rival-hillary-clinton-in-2008-ny1-interview.html
Not sure why this was down-voted.. if someone cant’t appreciate today’s MBPro as a worthy upgrade from a 2010 MBPro, then you aren’t worthy! Get a Dell, dude!
And the stock drops..this is nuts. I think they pretty much changed laptops for the next 4 iterations. What else do these Wall Street “experts” want?
If the people on MDN (who are about as loyal a customer base that Apple can ever hope for) are complaining about this announcement it is telling you a lot. Please explain how this MBP has “changed laptops”.
They made it thinner and added a touch bar, while using last generation processors and insufficient RAM for the “pros” this machine is supposedly targeting. Oh, they made it more expensive to boot.
The only thing they changed is the Mac value proposition, and they didn’t change it for the better.
BTW, I have never bought a non-Apple computer, going all the way back to an Apple IIe in 1985. I was waiting for this update to buy my daughter a new laptop, but I am going to seriously look at other options before deciding.
I took one of those vaunted HP Spectres for a spin a few days ago. This is a ‘premium’ Windows laptop in the same price category as the MacBook Pro. All I can say is, have fun all you folks planning on switching to Windows, it will be a costly lesson for you. The build quality wasn’t near as good as a Mac, and, well, it’s a Windows computer, you’ll have a blast spinning around with its frustrations and bugs!
Steve Jobs warned against Apple becoming too greedy. It was on full display today. MacBook Pro prices are outrageous. Forget about gimmicks like tool bars etc. The question is are new Macs doing something that Dell which is half price can’t do?
Apple has now gone completely overboard valuing design over utility. Yes, the machine is beautiful. Yes, the engineering and manufacturing quality is the best in the world. Do those things help the user do their work better than a windows machine, enough to justify the premium price? Now I’m not so sure of the answer.
The 13″ MBP prices are insanely expensive for a 256 GB SSD and a paltry 8GB of RAM. $300 premium for the gimmick bar?
The FUD about MBPro’s being overpriced has been debunked. If you look at Quality PC notebooks with aluminum cases and quality components, equal battery life weight and performance they are similarly priced. Quality costs money and you get what you pay for. My 2012 MBPro has been a beast, used every day at work and home, on the road and has been absolutely solid. I expect to pay top dollar for the best notebook in the world.
the prices for the loaded pros make sense.
1899 Canadian for the base 13 inch with no touchbar/id is ludicrous.
PLAID SPEED LUDICROUS
But you are not paying top dollar for the best laptop hardware in the world. Apple doesn’t sell the most capable, highest performing laptops. They haven’t for the last 7 years. Apple charges a significant premium for brand name, retail overhead, iCloud overhead, and of course the overhead of donut edifices and insane executive gifts. Even if the user doesn’t want any of that, it is Apple’s increasingly bloated overhead that makes the Mac more expensive than better performing windows machines.
Replacing physical keys with a touchscreen isn’t going to change that.
Applle is now a parody of itself — more expensive, thinner, and oooh. Look! We put another touchscreen on it! Reality is that apple could have created an iOS app that could turn any iOS device into a multifunctional input keypad for the Mac years ago. Waiting 3 years or more to shoehorn it into one of a whole lineup of stale devices is lazy. Apple once again proves that it can’t do more than one thing at a time, so it always does iOS toys first while productivity machines fall behind. Not a good trend.
Anyone notice an awkwardness in the people demonstrating the touch bar – the keyboard gets in the way. Maybe the keyboard need palm rejection?
Hoping for touch bar on the stand alone keyboard next!
Q: How resistant is the new touch pad to unintended contact with the user’s hands? The thing is now huge to the point of being directly under where I place my palms on my MBP while I type. *worried*
And my 2012 quadcore i7 Mac mini keeps appreciating 😆
Honestly, that was it for the 1st 2017 quarter? The touch bar is a nice feature, granted, but they needed three years to develop this? Sorry, this USB-C business is a no-buy for me. I need to plug in data sticks, display cables, back-up disks and even keyboards with number pads. That makes 4 freaking adapters, starting at $39 apiece and going up to $79. A $39 adapter to plug in a $9 USB stick! What’s the use of thinner and lighter if you have to add a bouquet of adapters to the satchel?
They also killed the 11′ MBA,; it probably made too much sense for travellers.
Guess I’ll have to stay with my old hardware and put more money in my new car.
Big YAWN, really this is what the event was all about? Another WAY overpriced laptop?
FU Apple, I took my money I saved for a new desktop and bought a DJI Mavic Pro and Alienware desktop. At least now I have a machine that can edit 4k video.
Looking forward to my very first PC purchase.