Apple’s latest line of MacBook Pros sports an OLED Touch Bar just above the physical keyboard. The point of the Touch Bar is to offer a dynamic, programmable strip that acts as both an extension of your keyboard and an auxiliary input device for select apps on your Mac.
As incredible as the Touch Bar is, one feature that Apple seemed to skim across when designing it was haptic feedback.
Google yesterday announced that its freshly updated Chrome desktop browser has at long last brought out official support for handy navigation shortcuts on the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar.
Supported shortcuts include Chrome's unified search/URL box, bookmarks and a new tab shortcut. Like with other Touch Bar shortcuts, they're easily customizable by choosing Customize Touch Bar from the View menu, where you can also turn off typing suggestions.
In addition, Chrome 60 for macOS includes an updated Credential Management API (allowing websites to interact with Chrome's password manager) while packing in support for the Payment Request API for auto-filling checkout forms and other developer enhancements.
On a related note, Google said yesterday it would remove Flash completely from Chrome toward the end of 2020 following Adobe's announcement to end-of-life its Flash plug-in.
If you regularly visit a site that uses Flash today and it migrates to open web standards, you shouldn’t notice much difference except that you'll no longer see prompts in Chrome to run Flash on that site. “If the site continues to use Flash, and you give the site permission to run Flash, it will work through the end of 2020,” said Google.
Chrome's silent updating mechanism ensures you're always running the most recent version of the app. To check for updates manually, choose About Google Chrome from the menu.
You can download Chrome from Google's website.
Apple has refreshed its notebook lineup during this morning's keynote presentation at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose. Like its updated 12-inch MacBook, the refreshed MacBook Pro lineup now provides Intel's latest seventh-generation processors, code-named “Kaby Lake”, that were announced in March.
All MacBook Pro models now include enhanced SSDs, up to 50 percent faster than before.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar starts at $1,799. If you need a notebook with a 15-inch display and Touch Bar, that'll be a cool $2,399, at least.
The 13-inchers have Intel CPUs up to 3.5 GHz Core i7 with Turbo Boost up to 4.0 GHz while their 15-inch counterparts include up to 3.1 GHz Core i7 chips with Turbo Boost up to 4.1 GHz.
In terms of graphics, the baseline non-Touch Bar model uses Intel's Iris Plus Graphics 640. The more powerful Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 is powering other 13-inchers without Touch Bar.
All models of the 15-inch MacBook Pro have been upgraded to Radeon Pro 555 discrete graphics with 2GB video memory. A Radeon Pro 560 GPU with 4GB memory is available as a build-to-order option on Apple's web store.
Here are the stock MacBook Pro configurations:
$1,299 13-inch MaBook Pro
13.3-inch LED-backlit 2560-by-1600 display with IPS technology at 227PPI, with 200 nits of brightness and wide color (P3) support 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz 8GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory 128GB SSD storage Integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 2x USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports$1,499 13-inch MaBook Pro
13.3-inch LED-backlit 2560-by-1600 display with IPS technology at 227PPI, with 200 nits of brightness and wide color (P3) support 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz 8GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory 256GB SSD storage Integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 2x USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports$1,799 13-inch MaBook Pro
13.3-inch LED-backlit 2560-by-1600 display with IPS technology at 227PPI, with 200 nits of brightness and wide color (P3) support 3.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz 8GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory 256GB SSD storage Integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 4x USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports Touch Bar and Touch ID$1,999 13-inch MaBook Pro
13.3-inch LED-backlit 2560-by-1600 display with IPS technology at 227PPI, with 200 nits of brightness and wide color (P3) support 3.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz 8GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory 512GB SSD storage Integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 4x USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports Touch Bar and Touch ID$2,399 13-inch MaBook Pro
15-inch LED-backlit 2880-by-1800 display with IPS technology at 220PPI, with 200 nits of brightness and wide color (P3) support 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz 16GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory 256GB SSD storage Discrete Radeon Pro 555 graphics with 2GB video memory 4x USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports Touch Bar and Touch ID$2,799 13-inch MaBook Pro
15-inch LED-backlit 2880-by-1800 display with IPS technology at 220PPI, with 200 nits of brightness and wide color (P3) support 2.9GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz 16GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory 512GB SSD storage Discrete Radeon Pro 560 graphics with 4GB video memory 4x USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports Touch Bar and Touch IDThe updated machines are available with 1-day shipping, in Silver or Space Gray.
It's worth reiterating that the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro model without Touch Bar now costs $1,299 instead of $1,499. Being a cool $200 cheaper actually makes in comparison MacBook Air a tougher sell as it's only gotten a faster 1.8GHz Intel chip today.
Apple also continues to offer the previous-generation MacBook Pro with a 15-inch screen, Intel's 2.2GHz quad-core Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz, 16GB 1600MHz memory, 256GB SSD storage, Intel Iris Pro Graphics and two Thunderbolt 2 ports.
It's available in Silver finish only and costs $1,999 a pop.
These updated MacBook Pro models, plus improved iMacs and the 13-inch MacBook Air models with a faster 1.8GHz CPU, are all available to order today on Apple.com.
You can buy them in Apple Stores starting on Wednesday, June 7.
The Touch Bar is perhaps one of the most innovative new features of the latest model of MacBook Pro, but a new jailbreak tweak dubbed TouchBar by iOS developer LaughingQuoll aspires to bring a similar feature to jailbroken iOS devices.
After installation, the tweak essentially hides out at the bottom of your device’s display in all interfaces. This makes it easy to get to, enabling you to access its shortcuts with ease, no matter what you might be doing.
Thom Holwerda, managing editor of OSnews, heard from “people and sources who know their stuff” that Apple's been working on additional MacBook Pro models without TouchBar. Sources claim the decision to develop new MacBook Pros sans Touch Bar was made because Apple was taken aback by harsh criticism that professional users leveled at the latest MacBook Pro models.
Still enjoying iTunes despite the beautiful mess it has become on macOS? If the answer is yes, perhaps listen up for this one. Every once in a while, seemingly low-key and low-price apps pop up in the market, claiming to have identified an imperfection or gap in Apple’s software, and in the next breath promising the fix for it. Some of these apps are superfluous to the user for the simple reason that the touted feature is already in place in Apple’s mothership software (in some shape or form), other apps are gimmicky or overly flawed.
Speed-Up for Mac firmly sits in the opposite camp, the one where ostensibly small apps are extremely wholesome and deliver on the promised goods. So what does it promise you ask? Put simply, to speed up or slow down your iTunes playback, an option otherwise notably absent on macOS. If this sounds surprisingly succinct or sober to you, that’s because it is.
Speed-Up treasures simplicity over bells & whistles, and is probably worth a look if you have ever caught yourself wishing for a speed lever in the thick of an Audiobook or Podcast session on your MacBook.
Algoriddim's Apple Design Award-winning djay Pro for macOS was updated on Mac App Store today with Pioneer DJ integration and other improvements. The app is now officially certified by Pioneer DJ to be used with their high end gear, including CDJ-2000NXS2/Tour setups via plug and play. “To our knowledge, djay Pro is the first third-party app to support Pioneer DJ’s Pro DJ Link technology, which means users connect up to four CDJs with their Pioneer mixer and control djay Pro through a single USB cable (mixer to Mac),” Algoriddim's Michael Simmons told me in an email message.
Microsoft was one of the companies mentioned during Apple's “Hello again” Mac event last October as working on implementing support for Touch Bar shortcuts in their productivity apps.
Today, the Windows maker launched a preview of Touch Bar shortcuts on the new MacBook Pro available across its suite of Office apps. Beginning this week, users on Microsoft's beta program, dubbed Office Insider, will be able to test the new Touch Bar support across Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook for Mac.
Visually impaired users who own Apple's MacBook Pro with Touch Bar may be pleased to learn that macOS provides a set of specialized Accessibility features that help people who are blind or have low vision enjoy the compelling features of Touch Bar. If you have difficulty seeing items in your Touch Bar, turning this feature on renders a larger Touch Bar on the main display. Other users should check out Touch Bar zoom, too.
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to turn Touch Bar zoom on, increase or decrease the zoom level, select or split-tap an item on Touch Bar and use other specialized gestures.
As you probably heard, the influential consumer organization Consumer Reports is not recommending Apple's new MacBook Pro due to inconsistent battery performance. Apple's marketing honcho Phill Schiller responded by saying that the product-testing magazine's test results don't match the company's own data. 9to5Mac reached out to Consumer Reports to learn more about their findings, here's what the magazine had to say.
Spotify for Mac was updated this morning with support for Touch Bar shortcuts on the new MacBook Pro models, German outlet Giga.de reported. A few handy music-playback controls are now available in Spotify's Mac app directly from the Touch Bar, including common controls such as transport and search, as well as persistent Now Playing buttons like play, pause, shuffle, repeat and the volume slider.
Consumer Reports will not be recommending Apple's latest MacBook Pro models due to inconsistent battery performance, the magazine said Thursday. After conducting a battery of tests, Consumer Reports discovered that battery life across all new Pros varied “dramatically” from one test to another.
On the other hand (as I note in this article), the battery woes might be caused by a software issue in Safari for Mac because Chrome (a notorious battery hog) fared far better in the tests.
Be that as it may, Apple's latest notebooks received low rating and failed to earn Consumer Report’s recommendation “after battery life issues surfaced during testing”. As a result, the new MacBook Pro is the first Apple notebook that did not receive a Consumer Reports recommendation, said the magazine.