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Apple To Refresh Entire MacBook Lineup Next Month, Air and Pro To Feature Kaby Lake (bloomberg.com)
Apple will unveil new laptops during its annual developer conference, known as WWDC, next month, reports Bloomberg. The company is going to refresh the MacBook Pro (as well as Air and just the 'MacBook' models) with new seventh-gen processors from Intel, the newest available, the report adds. Last year, Apple launched three new MacBook Pro laptops with older sixth-generation chips, which means people who already own the newer model may be a bit dismayed by Apple's refresh. From the article: Apple is planning three new laptops, according to people familiar with the matter. The MacBook Pro will get a faster Kaby Lake processor from Intel, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss internal planning. Apple is also working on a new version of the 12-inch MacBook with a faster Intel chip. The company has also considered updating the aging 13-inch MacBook Air with a new processor as sales of the laptop, Apple's cheapest, remain surprisingly strong, one of the people said.
Not sure if you know, but you can customize the touchbar. If you go to "System Preferences->Keyboard->Customize Control Strip" you can customize it... get rid of Siri, move things around, etc.
I had the same problem hitting the Siri button, but once I found this it made my life so much easier.
I still don't use the touchbar much, but I do love touch ID.
See, I'm actually a bit surprised that Apple did a touchbar at the top of the keyboard. I think a couple other options might have been smarter:
1) A small screen on the outside of the laptop so that notifications can be seen while closed. New Macs have a feature called "Power Nap" which allows the Mac to do limited things while asleep (e.g. check email). It might be handy to be able to see if you've received PowerNap enabled controls and notifications without opening your laptop. On the other hand, I'm not sure there are many uses for this that wouldn't be better handled on a smartphone.
2) Turn the trackpad into a touchscreen. It's basically already a fairly large glass touchscreen that you're used to performing gestures on. All they'd have to do is put a display behind the glass. Then you could enable apps to assign functions to specific gestures to specific areas of the touchscreen.
To replace some of the keyboard buttons with a touchscreen, however, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Power users are generally going to be accustomed to touch typing, so forcing them to look at the keyboard for some of those keyboard functions seems counter-productive.
A pro-level machine needs pro-level connectivity.
True. I went for a refurb of last-year's Pro, just for the ports. A photographer friend of mind is suffering with his Touchbar model because he HAS to have USB Type-A style ports for his cameras and other equipment, so he's got this cheesy-looking third-party multi-port dongle that keeps falling out when he moves the machine from place to place because Type-C is so damn small and doesn't grip that hard.
Apple should take notice that PC laptops don't all stink anymore... and they all feature a full variety of ports. USB Type-A, in particular, is not going away soon, nor is it likely that the thumb-drive your co-worker just handed you has a Type-C connector. Maybe for the tiny Macbook a single Type-C with Thunderbolt is ok, but for the bucks you throw down on a Pro model, it's just irritating that you have to shell out yet more bucks (and space in your bag) for at least a Type-A dongle, which makes comparably equipped PC's that much more attractive.
and so-what that the Type-C can be used for power... stop showing off and bring back the MagSafe connector.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...