Apple MacBook Pro completely redesigned to include new display in its keyboard
The new laptop is thinner, lighter, smaller and more square than its predecessor – and includes one big change to the keyboard
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Your support makes all the difference.Apple has revealed its completely redesigned MacBook Pro, the computer that it hopes can put an end to worries that about its future.
The company unveiled the laptop as part of an event at its California headquarters. It also showed off a new TV app – but didn't update any of its desktop computers, as many had hoped, and showed off no new categories of products.
The new computer is thinner, lighter and differently shaped from the old MacBook Pro. But the main change is the new screen that's built into the keyboard.
That screen sits instead of the function keys that have existed on almost every laptop and other keyboard that's been made for decades. The company said that it was "crazy" to keep using that technology – and so instead swapped it for a "Touch Bar".
The multi-touch display can be used instead of the traditional things that the function keys are used for, like changing the volume or the light. But in other apps it will change – in Safari, for instance, it will show icons for your favourite websites.
That same bar also includes a TouchID fingerprint sensor. That means that people can unlock their laptop and make purchases with it just by touching their finger on their computer.
That means that it also includes the "secure enclave" that's present in iPhones and iPads. That component is meant to keep all the most sensitive data secure – meaning that it isn't possible for a device to get into your fingerprints and allow hackers to access them, for instance.
And beneath that keyboard is a huge trackpad, which is twice the size of the one in the existing MacBook Pro. And the keyboard itself is smaller, using the same flatter butterfly keys that are present in the new MacBook.
The normal screen – that sits in the usual place – is much brighter and more detailed than the one in the laptop it replaces. And inside the body itself it has far faster processors and graphic components, Apple said.
Apple has also got rid of the array of ports that sit on the side of the existing MacBook Pro. Instead, they've been swapped for USB-C ports – a versatile plug that can be used for everything from charging to connecting to monitors.
But it does include a headphone jack. Though that was unlikely to be dropped, Apple made much of its "courage" in doing so while it launched the iPhone 7 last month, and some had worried that it would bring that wireless future to the MacBook Pro as well.
The new MacBook Pro will come in 13 and 15-inch sizes and silver and space grey colour finishes.
The version with the Touch Bar starts at $1799. Apple is also selling a version of the computer with the traditional function keys, which starts at $1499.
The event was held at Apple's campus, and is likely to be the last one there before it moves to a new location soon. The company pointed out that it was 25 years since it first released its debut laptop, the PowerBook. "For 25 years we've been defining and redefining what a notebook can do, and today we're going to do it again," Tim Cook said.
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