Apple unveils new, thinner and lighter MacBook Pros with 'Touch Bar' and Touch ID sensor
Four years after dropping the DVD drive and switching to Retina displays, Apple's finally redesigned the MacBook Pros.
The brand new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros are even thinner and lighter than before. The 13-inch MacBook Pro weighs three pounds and the 15-inch weighs four pounds. And now they come in a space gray finish in addition to silver.
"It has a whole new design made of metal; it's aluminum on all sides," Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said. "It is the new gold standard in notebook computers."
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The Touch Bar and Touch ID sensor replace the row of function keys and the power button, respectively, on previous MacBook Pro keyboards.
Instead of dedicated function keys (brightness, music controls, Mission Control, volume, etc.), the Touch Bar now occupies that space. The long black strip is an OLED display and shows different shortcut buttons based on what app is open.
Some examples of the Touch Bar's application include displaying emoji:
Showing extra tool shortcuts for apps like Photos:
A quick shortcut for thumbing through photo thumbnails:
Showing different website shortcuts icons:
Displaying word processing tools:
Playback controls for music and video apps:
An Apple exec showed how convenient using the Touch bar is for video editing in Final Cut Pro X:
An Adobe executive also showed how it could be used with Photoshop:
DJs can also use the Touch Bar for music creation with the DJ Pro app:
In place of the power button is a Touch ID sensor that can be used to securely unlock the laptop or as an payment authentication for Apple Pay when purchasing items through Apple Pay-supported vendors via Safari.
The Touch ID sensor also lets different users log in instantly with their fingerprints. A different fingerprint is associated with a different user account.
The Touch Bar is also completely customizable. You can add a myriad of Touch Bar shorcuts like a dedicated screenshot button:
The keyboard uses second-generation "butterfly mechanisms." Schiller says the travel is better than the first-gen keys on the 12-inch MacBook. Apple's also doubled the trackpad surface area.
The speaker's are also louder and more powerful than on the previous MacBook Pro.
As "pro" machines, the new MacBook Pros still deliver on performance. The 15-inch MacBook Pro is powered by Intel's sixth-gen quad-core Core i7 processors and come with AMD Radeon Pro graphics with up to 4GB of video RAM and up to 2TB of faster SSD storage.
Here's how the new 15-inch MacBook Pro compares to the last-gen model from 2015:
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is pretty powerful, too. It's got a dual-core Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, Intel Iris Graphics that are 2x faster and 2x faster SSD storage:
Here's how the new 13-inch MacBook Pro compares with the old 13-inch MacBook Pro:
As you can see, it's significantly more powerful for gaming (103 percent faster), video editing ( 76 percent faster), and 3D graphics (76 percent faster).
The new MacBook Pros also do away with the myriad of different ports (including the beloved magnetic MagSafe) and replaces them with four multi-purpose USB-C ports, the smaller and reversible USB port first introduced on the 12-inch MacBook.
Power users will no doubt be upset at the loss of full-sized USB 3.0 ports. But with the tech world rallying behind USB-C as the one port to rule them all, it's pretty obvious that we need to make the switch now or be stuck in the past forever.
Besides, USB-C ports are super versatile. On the new MacBook Pros, all of the USB-C ports are also Thunderbolt 3, which means they're capable of driving two 4K displays at up to 60Hz and transferring data at up to 40Gbps. Furthermore, the USB-C ports are all capable of charging and outputting video.
The redesign has one other casualty besides the MagSafe and dedicated function row keys: the SD card slot. Its removal isn't a big deal for people who take photos and videos with their smartphones, but for professionals, it's a huge loss. Photographers and filmmakers rely on the SD card slot to quickly download their footage to their laptops, and without it, they'll need to get a memory card adapter. It's like we've returned back to early 2000s when laptops didn't have SD cards.
Battery life is also greatly improved. Apple touts up to 10 hours for both the 13- and 15-inch.
For those who don't want the Touch Bar, Apple's also got an entry-level MacBook Pro with a row of standard function keys.
The new MacBook Pros start at $1,499 for the 13-inch model with the regular function keys, $1,799 for the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and $2,399 for the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.
They're available for order starting today and ship accordingly:
This story is developing...
Raymond Wong is Mashable's Senior Tech Correspondent. He reviews gadgets and tech toys and analyzes the tech industry. Raymond's also a bit of a camera geek, gamer, and fine chocolate lover. Before arriving at Mashable, he was the Deputy Editor of NBC Universal's tech publication DVICE. His writing has appeared on G4TV, BGR, Yahoo and Ubergizmo, to name a few. You can follow Raymond on Twitter @raywongy or Instagram @sourlemons.
