Apple Announces new MacBook Pro (Oh and Some Apple TV Stuff)

It’s been four years since Apple made a major update to its flagship laptop line. I’m not an Apple user, so I can’t say I’ve been missing it, but I have gone long periods of time without drinking water and I assume that’s a similar feeling. Well drink up, my friends, because the 2016 MacBook Pro is real and it’s spectacular.

The New MacBook Pro

The function keys are gone, and in their place is the Touch Bar, a mini Retina display that serves as a multitouch screen that can support up to ten fingers at once. You can use gestures and taps to perform various functions centered around whatever you’re doing at the time. If change startles you, there is a button that will bring the function keys back. The bar is customizable using a drag-and-drop functionality from the main screen. The bar uses TouchID, too.

It’s the thinnest and lightest MacBook Pro to date, which fits snuggly with Apple’s M.O., with the 13-inch version of the laptop coming in at 14.9mm thick and three pounds. The 15-inch version is four pounds and the display is 67-percent brighter. The speakers are improved, too. On the inside you’ll find Intel Core i5 and i7 chips, and the new thermal architecture should not only lessen overheating but also run quieter. Graphic performance has reportedly been improved, too. This is mainly on the beefed up 15-inch version.

This new Pro will have four Thunderbolt 3 ports, which can double as USB, DisplayPort, VGA, or HDMI – with adapters, of course. There’s also this fancy new port called a headphone jack, something that may be new to Apple users. The trackpad is twice the size of the latest version and includes Force Touch, and the keyboard uses the “butterfly” keyboard switch mechanism.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro is available now for $1,499 without the Touch Bar; with, it’s $1,799. The 15-inch retails for $2,399.

TV

Yeah, it’s just called TV now. Using this new app, you can track your favorite shows and movies across all of the video apps and keep all the info localized in this one app. According to Tim Cook, there are now 1,600 apps on Apple TV, which is why it’s so important to have one app to make sense of it all. What makes Apple’s solution better than most is that they partnered with the video providers themselves. Sadly, Netflix is not part of this whole deal, and there was no explanation as to why.

Siri is also smart enough to know what app to launch when you want to watch specific content. You can also ask Siri what games are currently on and she’ll tell you. The feature is called Siri Live Tune-in and it’s available now.

Apple is finally rolling out Single Sign-On, which lets you sign into all streaming services at once, rather than individually.

Oh, and Apple TV is getting Minecraft, whatever that is.