Apple's new line of MacBook Pros was finally revealed at the 'hello again' presentation on Thursday, October 27th, and the initial first impressions with smaller form factor, new Touch Bar, and upgraded specs are stunning.
Apple is sticking to its gun with both the 13-inch and 15-inch sizes in its lineup, and in this post, we'll outline the spec differences between each of them for you.
Folks who missed today’s 'hello again' event, or would just like to watch it again, will be happy to hear that Apple has posted the full video online for your streaming pleasure. It was actually a fairly short keynote, by Apple's standards, but they spent most of the 80 minutes introducing and demonstrating the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.
Alongside the introduction of its brand new MacBook Pro laptop on Thursday, Apple announced that it has decided to discontinue the 11-inch MacBook Air (except for in schools). It will continue to sell the 13-inch model with a starting price of $999, although it didn't get an update today and likely won't ever again.
Apple today refreshed its Mac notebook lineup with all-new 13 and 15-inch models that have Touch Bar and Touch ID in place of the hardware function keys row, among other new features. It's a stellar feature that I can't wait to use.
According to Apple, the Touch Bar is meant to replace the function keys “that have long occupied the top of your keyboard with something much more versatile and capable.” I'm sold on the new Touch Bar, but where did the dedicated Power button go and how exactly do you turn this thing on now?
Apple has posted various videos shown during today’s 'hello again' Mac event to its YouTube channel. Included are clips highlighting Apple's commitment to Accessibility features and various MacBook Pro demos and promotional spots.
Of course you can watch a replay of the entire event, so folks that completely missed the keynote this morning may want to do that. But if you just want to get to the meat of the big announcements, these videos are a great starting point.
Apple just announced pricing and availability information for its shiny new MacBook Pro. Apparently it will come in 3 models, starting at $1,499, and you can order them all today. Shipping times are different, however, depending on which model you're after.
The entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro is essentially a MacBook Air replacement. It shares the slimmer design and various internals with the new MacBook Pro, but it comes with physical Function keys instead of the Touch Bar, and doesn't have Touch ID.
Allo, Google's cross-platform smart messaging app with built-in Google Assistant, was bumped this morning to version 2.0 following its App Store debut a month ago.
Allo's built-in Assistant now supports voice dictation so you can now converse with it instead of typing. Another new feature: you can draw right on your image attachments. Google Allo 2.0 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch is a free download from the App Store.
Microsoft today refreshed Skype for iPhone and iPod touch and Skype for iPad with the ability to send messages to your Skype contacts using Siri. Just say something along the lines “Send message to John on Skype saying what's up?” and Siri will do the right thing.
Earlier, the app integrated with iOS 10's CallKit to make VoIP Skype calls behave like traditional phone calls with Lock screen, Phone, Favorites and Contacts integration.
And earlier this week, Microsoft announced a number of other changes that will be coming to Skype for iOS in the coming weeks.
The Apple Watch Nike+ is arriving tomorrow in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and a number of other countries. The Series 2 comes with exclusive Nike-branded bands, watch faces and complications, plus the Nike+ Run Club app is built-in. Ahead of tomorrow's launch, Nike+ Run Club for iOS was refreshed this morning with new features on the Apple Watch Series 2.
Just ahead of Apple's 'hello again' keynote event Thursday morning, Twitter announced its plans to discontinue the video-looping social networking app we all know as Vine.
It's been a little more than two weeks since Photoshop maker Adobe released a security update for its Flash Player for macOS which fixed a bunch of critical vulnerabilities and now another critical security update for Flash Player got released this morning. According to Adobe, the vulnerabilities in the current version of Flash Player could allow an attacker to take control of Mac, Windows, Linux and Chrome OS machines.
Like clockwork, Apple has taken its online stores around the world offline ahead of today's “Hello again” Mac event, which kicks off with a keynote at 10am PT / 1pm ET at Town Hall on the Cupertino campus. iDownloadBlog will be providing remote live coverage of the announcements as they happen.
Apple typically takes the online store down ahead of major product introductions. The store should go back up with new product listings as soon as the event wraps up. Be sure to stick around as we've got a lot more coming up.